ST denies breakup rumours

It was reported yesterday by Bloomberg that the chip maker was in talks to sell its struggling analogue business, which makes chips and sensors for everything from cars to video game consoles. Stung into action, the company has responded, saying nothing of the sort is planned. A statement read: "Following today's Bloomberg article, ST confirms its strong denial on the existence of a project which can compromise the unity of the company. Also, such a project has never been presented to the ST supervisory board. There is full alignment between the management of the company and the supervisory board of directors" A short while ago, ST said the company's future would be laid out in a strategic plan to be presented in December. Now, persistent rumours claim the company will be broken up and essentially sold for parts. The loss making digital side of the company, along with the floundering ST-Ericsson joint venture, would go - Samsung has been named as the buyer - while the profitable analogue, mixed signal and MEMS operations would be retained. The question now is whether there is fire associated with the smoke.