SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho showed confidence in the ongoing race to take over cash-strapped Toshiba’s NAND flash unit Wednesday.

“I have been working on the Toshiba deal for two years,” Park told reporters at the 2017 World IT Show at Coex in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul. “Since it is important to build trust with Japanese shareholders, considering their national sentiment, we had held many meetings with Toshiba shareholders.” 

Park, known as a merger and acquisitions expert within SK Group, has been supporting SK hynix to acquire Toshiba. He flew to Japan with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won last month to meet top brass at Toshiba.

SK hynix announced Friday that it submitted its final bid for the Toshiba unit with a consortium partner in a regulatory filing.

SK hynix’s partner is said to be US private equity fund Bain Capital. The SK consortium’s offer price is estimated to be around 1 trillion yen.

“Even after making the final bid, there are many hard-core challenges in the Toshiba in Japan,” Park said. “It would take about one month to select a preferred bidder.”

“I think a company that has been doing the semiconductor business for long might be helpful to Toshiba,” he added.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)