Chip machine maker ASM International said on Friday it has held talks with a number of people with a ‘semiconductor equipment industry background’ to discuss optimising ASMI’s wafer-processing operations.

The meeting took place ‘on the initiative of certain shareholders’, the company said in a statement. The Financieele Dagblad claims the initiative came from Fursa Alternative Strategies, a hedge fund which has publicly criticised company policy several times.
Fursa wants the company’s loss making wafer processing activities separated from its profitable operations, the paper said.