Japan-based Tokuyama, one of the world’s leaders in polysilicon manufacturing, announced to terminate its solar-grade polysilicon business by selling its wholly-owned subsidiary, Tokuyama Malaysia, to OCI, a South Korean polysilicon maker.

Sources from media revealed that Tokuyama would sell all shares in Tokuyama Malaysia to OCI at US$9.8 million (approximately JPY 9.8 billion), and the transaction is scheduled to close by March 31, 2017, the last day of fiscal year 2016. The transaction will bring Tokuyama a special loss of around JPY 8 billion to be listed for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2016, expected the seller.

Tokuyama Malaysia was founded in 2009 as an production expansion for solar-grade and semiconductor-use polysilicon. Tokuyama started construction the polysilicon fab in Malaysia in 2011 but a series of technical problems in manufacturing equipment followed the completion and operation of it.

Tokuyama has listed huge amounts of loss for consecutive two years for the Malaysia fab due to the technical problems and severe market decline in solar-grade polysilicon. The losses listed for fiscal year 2014 and 2015 for Tokuyama Malaysia were JPY 74.8 billion and JPY 123.4 billion, respectively.

After conducting evaluations, the company decided to sell the Malaysia fab to OCI