SanDisk focus of buyout rumor

Shares of SanDisk Corp., the world’s largest maker of memory cards used in digital cameras, jumped the most in more than two months on speculation that Toshiba Corp. would offer to buy it -- even though Toshiba denied it had such plans.

Stock in the Milpitas, Calif., company rose $1.81, or 25%, to $9.02, the most since Sept. 17. The company’s shares have lost 73% of their value this year.

“There was takeover speculation that Toshiba might be looking at SanDisk as a possible acquisition,” said Frederic Ruffy, a strategist at WhatsTrading.com, a New York provider of options market analysis. “That triggered the move in the stock price.”

The purchase would give Toshiba access to memory patents held by SanDisk as the Tokyo company seeks to close the gap with Samsung Electronics Co. in the $12-billion market for NAND flash, chips that store songs and pictures in cameras and music players.

“We have no intention to purchase SanDisk,” Toshiba spokeswoman Hiroko Mochida said in Tokyo. SanDisk spokesman Ryan Donovan declined to comment.

SanDisk has posted two straight quarterly losses as an industry glut drove down prices.

Researcher ISuppli Corp. estimated that revenue in the global NAND flash market would fall 14% to $12 billion this year and 15% in 2009.