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Some new information has just emerged in the Dutch press. According to a just published article by the NRC newspaper [0], the owner wanted to use Nexperia's fu
by daan-k 1y ago
Some new information has just emerged in the Dutch press.
According to a just published article by the NRC newspaper [0], the owner wanted to use Nexperia's funds to finance another business (WingSkySemi) which was in financial trouble. He would have done this by making Nexperia place large orders for wafers it did not need. The article mentions Nexperia only requiring $70-80 million in wafers, while Nexperia would have ordered wafers from WingSkySemi with a value of $200 million.
In order to achieve this, the owner is said to have put strawmen without financial experience in place and fire European directors. When other directors raised the alarm about this, they were fired according to the article.
This issue was raised to the Dutch government, which then intervened.
Have a look at the original article through google translate, it provides a lot of interesting and important details to this story.
[0] https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/10/14/chinese-topman-gebruikte-geld-van-nexperia-voor-zijn-chinese-chipfabriek-a4909538 https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/10/14/chinese-topman-gebruikt...
- scotty79 1y agoSeems like business as usual. It's just that the industry it operates in is kinda sensitive subject for everybody right now.
- Doxin 1y agoTo be clear the specific intervention used here is very rare. It's really not business as usual, but it's also not nation state shenanigans luckily. Just regular old grift.
- scotty79 1y agoYeah, the intervention is unusual, but what the companies tried to do is completely common scheming.
- rcxdude 1y agoThis is exactly the kind of thing you're not meant to do with a company you don't wholly own (and to some extent with any limited liability company). Part of the deal is that as an executive or majority shareholder the company is not an extension of yourself, it's a seperate entity and when making decisions about it you are meant to act in the interests of that company. This is sadly not well enforced, but it is the kind of thing where shareholders can and will take action. (Musk has been heavily criticised for pulling these kinds of shenanigans between Tesla, SpaceX, and X, but it seems like there are not enough shareholders willing to take him to task for it)
- tinco 1y agoI am sort of surprised we even have an arm of government quick and authoritative enough to be able to intervene here. I always assumed the government would just let any frogs boil.
- eqvinox 1y agoIndeed, how did they even figure this out?
- ArnoVW 1y agoin the NRC article it says that board members started to complian that the CEO was "making choices that were not in the interest of the company". Four days later they were fired. "It was at that moment that Nexperia alerted the ministry of Economic Affairs"
- tinco 1y agoRight, I suppose at that point there was some chauvinism or at least fear of being held accountable for it. But the thing that surprised me was that there was actually someone listening at Economic Affairs. Perhaps at that level a board of directors has connections at the government. Either that, or there's some AFM type branch that listens to directors' complaints.
- OhNoNotAgain_99 1y ago[dead]
- FooBarWidget 1y agoI'm surprised they did this while the cabinet is fallen.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoThat's just the cabinet, so lawmaking is on hold for now, but the government and the ministry of economic affairs is still operational. A government can't just stop working because a small (albeit important) part of it is waiting for the elections.
- powerapple 1y agothis theory would contradict with the national security reason used by the government though. I have read in Chinese sources that they plan to remove the European directors, reasons I don't know.
- Thorrez 1y agoI guess that depends on 2 things: * how critical Nexperia's chips are to national security * how much this bogus order would harm Nexperia If the bogus order is sufficiently harmful to important chip production, this could harm national security.
- tracker1 1y agoIt seems that microchips are a major export, a single industry in a country collapsing can cause a lot of damage. From other mentioned articles, it seems like the company was setup to extract all value to prop up another company... not dissimilar from K-mart and Sears stripped of all value at the end. Now imagine that accounts for say even 5% of GDP and other industries rely on that product as well. I've been advocating for years that US prescription medications should require dual sourcing and at least 50% domestic production purely for security reasons. You can ramp up from 50% with multiple providers a lot easier than 0.
- powerapple 1y agoI can see that. WingTech bought it for profit, the best way to get the maximum reward is from the stock market. It is actually not rare operation in Chinese companies. But I doubt this is the reason Dutch government would interfere using the national security excuse. There are other ways to handle this, and would be less damaging. I am more inclined to believe that the US's pressure and the current management who wants to use this as a chance to take control of the company.
- teekert 1y agoThis Dutch article also adds a lot more context, what the Dutch government did starts to make more and more sense and would for sure be something the Chinese would have intervened in if the situation were reversed. [0] Update: Looks like China has retaliated: [1] [0] https://tweakers.net/nieuws/240304/nexperia-ceo-bevoordeelde-eigen-bedrijf-en-wilde-europese-bestuurders-ontslaan.html https://tweakers.net/nieuws/240304/nexperia-ceo-bevoordeelde... [1] https://nos.nl/artikel/2586411-china-legt-chipfabrikant-nexperia-exportverbod-op-na-ingrijpen-nederland https://nos.nl/artikel/2586411-china-legt-chipfabrikant-nexp...
- jacquesm 1y agoWhat is interesting here is that for obvious reasons the Chinese do not seem to understand - or be able to understand - that NL actually has an independent institute for handling such disputes that will operate with a fairly high degree of impartiality. Abusing funds of one company and jeopardizing its existence in order to prop up a non-related entity abroad is precisely the kind of situation why we have this institution in the first place. Mismanagement is - regardless of who the shareholders are - also something that we frown upon here and there actually is a mechanism to directly intervene in the case of such actions. Seeing the 3 top financial people replaced with strawmen and funneling large amounts of money abroad to buy things the company does not need is a surefire recipe for intervention. This would have also happened if the CEO had been dutch and the shareholders had been dutch, we actually had such a case in the last few years where the top guy (founder, even) at one of our larger IT companies lost his marbles.
- throw73949558 1y agoThey needed wafers for 70 million, were going to order for 200 million. 3x more is hardly "funneling large amounts of money". I would call that typical way to run business, perhaps they were making supplies for next three years, before tariffs kick in... Perhaps they were going to expand.
- jacquesm 1y agoThat's a funny thing to say, assuming it is in jest. Of course, just spending 130 million on stuff that you don't need only to destroy it is perfectly normal in the course of running a business. Not. A hundred million here, a hundred there, before you know it it is real money. What's with all the throwaway accounts on this thread anyway?
- karlgkk 1y ago> I would call that typical way to run business Then I suppose we should be thankful (or hope) that you do not run any sizable business.
- amazingman 1y ago
- adrian_b 1y agoThe press is full of contradictory information, so it is hard to guess which is the truth. This information about misdeeds of the CEO looks like a very convenient excuse for the Dutch government, while another article published in the press claims that, according to newly published court proceedings, already at a meeting in June between US officials and Dutch officials USA had requested the removal of the Chinese CEO by the Dutch, as a condition for not enforcing export controls over Nexperia. https://www.politico.eu/article/us-pressured-the-netherlands-over-ceo-of-seized-chip-maker/ https://www.politico.eu/article/us-pressured-the-netherlands... Both claims could be true, USA has pressured Netherlands to remove the Chinese CEO, then the Dutch have investigated the CEO to find a reason to intervene and they have found this dubious deal where he bought a double amount of wafers compared to the actual needs. This deal may be abusive, but it looks rather mild in comparison with how most CEOs mishandle the assets of their companies. I doubt that there are many CEOs against whom a thorough investigation would not find such deals. Here at least he got usable semiconductor wafers, but many such deals are for valueless software or consulting.
- furyg3 1y agoI can imagine that there could be a case of parallel construction to build a case to get a specific desired outcome. I also think that if you're right and this is an example of a 'mild' case of mismanaged assets it's still pretty egregious. I find the even milder circular financing of deals like nVidia investing in OpenAI to be concerning.