Shares Western Digital (NASDAQ:) have risen 10% in preopen following Elliott Investment Management’s today letter to the Board of Directors of Western Digital. Elliott Investment Management holds approximately $1 billion in WDC.

The letter is calling WDC to review the company’s business structure and suggests creating “two vastly different businesses, hard disk drives (HDD) and NAND flash memory (Flash).”

Eliott noted that WDC’s underperformance is “a direct result of the challenges of operating both the HDD and Flash businesses as part of the same company.”

If these changes were implemented, WDC stock could rise to more than $100 per Share by 2023 according to an investment management firm.

Elliott offered $1 billion in equity investments to the Flash company at an estimated value of $17 billion to $22 billion. WDC has a market cap of $16.87 billion, based on yesterday’s closing price.

“Today, we are calling on the Board to conduct a full strategic review of these ideas, confident in our view that a comprehensive, independent exploration of the value potential will point decisively toward a separation of HDD and Flash. Though the majority of this Board and management team were not involved in the SanDisk decision, it is nevertheless this Board’s responsibility to address current market realities and set the company on the right course,” it is said in the letter.

Elliott’s AUM is more than $50 billion

By Senad Karaahmetovic