Rohm USA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rohm Co Ltd of Kyoto, Japan, has sold 336,000 shares of Exar Corp’s common stock on the open market, reducing its stake to 37% from 46%. According to Electronic News, Exar, a supplier of mixed signal applications specific circuits, has been encouraging Rohm to shed some stock because it wants to promote itself as an independent US company, and Rohm is expected to further reduce its holding to around 25%. Rohm has held a stake in Exar since the company was first established in 1971, and by 1984, it had accumulated 99% ownership. It was only last year that it began to reduce its stake to a minority holding, by converting 1.7m of its common shares to a Series B preferred issue.
