SK Hynix denies report about approaching SoftBank on Kioxia merger

South Korea's SK Hynix Inc, the world's second-largest memory chip maker, said on Wednesday it has not approached Japan's SoftBank Group for a partnership concerning a possible deal with memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings Corp. A Nikkei report earlier on Wednesday said SK Hynix is reluctant to back a merger between U.S. rival Western Digital's memory chip operations and Kioxia, in which SK Hynix holds a stake. The report went on to say that SK Hynix had sounded out SoftBank for a partnership in case the merger falls through.