What a wild ride Nexperia has been on in the last few years.
The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs has taken partial control of Nexperia, a Dutch-based company that is owned by Chinese chipmaker Wintech Technology Co. Ltd.
Under the order, Nexperia is prohibited by the Dutch government from relocating company parts, firing staff or making other decisions without permissions from the Dutch government for a period of one year.
The move comes as the Dutch government — caught in the middle of the trade war between the U.S. and China — is concerned about intellectual property transfers of Nexperia assets to China.
The order is intended to prevent goods manufactured by Nexperia from becoming unavailable. Day-to-day operations at the company will continue, the Ministry said.
This is not the first time The Netherlands has been involved in the trade war. In March of 2023, the government imposed export restrictions on China, specifically the most advanced deposition and immersion lithography tools. This particularly impacted semiconductor equipment giant ASML, which would be forced to apply for export licenses to ship any advanced equipment to the country.
What happened
Apparently, during an emergency hearing the Dutch government found “valid reasons to doubt sound management at Nexerpia” under CEO Zhang Xuezheng.
The Ministry said, “due to the same serious managerial shortcomings” and that Nexperia’s “operations in Europe were being compromised in an unacceptable manner” caused the government to doubt the availability of semiconductor products “critical to the European industry.”
The Dutch Enterprise Chamber ruled that Xuezheng was suspended as a director and no longer the CEO of Nexperia. Additionally, all voting rights on the shares of Nexperia, held by Wingtech, had been placed under management of an independent administrator.
Stefan Tilger was appointed as Nexperia interim CEO.
According to reports, the Dutch Ministry used a Cold War era law, called the Goods Availability Act, passed in 1952 during post World War II reconstruction to suspend Xuezheng and appoint a former director to the board.
Newport Wafer Fab
And this isn’t the first time the Chinese-ownership of Nexperia has embroiled the company in controversy.
The saga of the Newport Wafer Fab, the U.K.’s largest semiconductor fab, took place over the course of 2022 to 2024 where Nexperia bought the facility.
The move to allow the sale to a China-owned company was controversial due to the U.K.’s concerns regarding Chinese ownership of the fab and previous issues involving Huawei and national security.
In November of 2022, the U.K. government ordered Nexperia to sell the assets of the Newport Wafer Fab. Once the decision to force Nexperia to sell the fab had been made, the U.K. government considered selling the fab to a U.S.-based consortium.
Over the course of the next two years, the Newport Wafer Fab would be juggled by suitors to own the facility. Finally, in March of 2024, Vishay Intertechnology Inc. was approved to buy out the assets from Nexperia, paying $177 million to Wingtech.
