-Hitachi and NEC Corp are aiming to raise up to $2.1 billion by selling their stakes in chipmaker Renesas Electronics, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters, joining a Japanese restructuring drive that has boosted shares.

Investors have welcomed measures to improve capital efficiency at Japanese firms, sending share prices to 34-year highs.

Firms have been spurred on by the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which earlier in January published a list of companies that had disclosed plans to improve capital efficiency and is expected to put pressure on companies to deliver.

Hitachi and NEC will sell a combined 123 million Renesas shares in an offer price range of 2,474 yen ($16.76) to 2,528 yen, the term sheet showed, a discount of about 6%-8% to Renesas's closing price on Thursday.

The chipmaker was created in 2010 from a merger of NEC's chip division and Renesas Technology, which itself was established through a merger of the chip units of Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

Hitachi and NEC are the latest major shareholders to offload their holdings. In November, Japanese state-backed fund INCJ sold all but a token portion of its stake, having steadily sold down the 69% of Renesas it acquired in a rescue deal in 2013.

At the time the chipmaker was the world's leading maker of microcontroller chips used in cars but was facing intense competition from overseas.

In April 2018, INCJ, NEC and Hitachi sold off nearly $3 billion of their Renesas holdings.

A Hitachi spokesperson confirmed the company planned to sell its Renesas shares. NEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment and Renesas declined to comment.

  - Reuters