May 21, 2009 (FinancialWire) — Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) said it has agreed to sell the assets of its media substrate manufacturing facility in Sarawak, Malaysia, to a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd.’s (NYSE: HIT) hard drive manufacturing unit. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The transaction is scheduled to close in the current quarter. Western Digital said that its employees at the facility will become employees of the purchaser.

In December, Western Digital said that it was taking actions to realign its cost structure to match a softer demand environment. The Malaysia divestiture is one of those steps.

The Sarawak facility, at which Western Digital manufactured aluminum substrates for hard drive magnetic media, was acquired by WD as part of its acquisition of Komag in September 2007. The company is consolidating substrate operations from the Sarawak facility into its other substrate facility in Johor, Malaysia.

Western Digital said it will continue to manufacture the majority of its magnetic media requirements at existing facilities in Malaysia and source the balance of its media needs through its external partners.

Lake Forest, California-based Western Digital provides hard drives and solid state storage devices used in consumer products for external, portable and shared storage applications.

The company’s storage products are marketed to systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital and WD brand names.

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