Lee Yoon-woo

Samsung Electronics Co. announced a major restructuring Friday, consolidating business operations into two divisions as South Korea's most powerful and iconic corporation deals with the slowing global economy and expectations of looming red ink.

The new organization was included in an announcement of personnel changes at the company as well as at the broader Samsung Group of which it serves as flagship.

Samsung Electronics Co. said Wednesday it has withdrawn a $26 a share bid to acquire SanDisk Corp., but suggested it was still interested in buying the U.S. flash memory card maker at a lower price.

In a letter dated and released Wednesday, Samsung Vice Chairman and CEO Lee Yoon-woo informed SanDisk's board that "we are no longer interested in acquiring SanDisk at $26 a share."

The letter said the offer was being withdrawn "after nearly six months of efforts to pursue a transaction with no meaningful progress."

Samsung Electronics said Thursday it was consolidating some of its key businesses a week after announcing a new executive lineup.

Samsung that it would merge its home theater, DVD and Blu-ray player businesses with its global No. 1 TV business as part of what it called a restructuring plan.

It will also move its digital music player, laptop computer and set-top box businesses from its digital media business to the telecommunications network business.

Set-top boxes bring Internet movie downloads to TV sets.