Toshiba is presently in the process of seeking a multi-billion dollar capital injection as its troubles to avoid a delisting from the Tokyo Stock Exchange continue, Reuters reported earlier this week, citing sources close to the Japanese tech giant. The company reportedly scheduled a board meeting on Monday to greenlight a $5.3 billion investment from foreign entities in order to ensure its status of a publicly traded company even if the proposed sale of its chipmaking unit is scrapped. While the previously announced transaction would see the firm raise approximately $18 billion, it needs to generate much less than that to avoid a delisting on April 1st 2018, with recent estimates putting its accounting hole at approximately 750 billion yen, or $6.68 billion.
The rumored investment is said to pertain to Toshiba’s personal computer division, as well as its TV unit, both of which are expected to be sold in the coming months. Due to the smaller scope and value of those businesses, Toshiba may be hoping to wrap up their sales much sooner than the one of its NAND semiconductor division that’s currently facing regulatory scrutiny and even a level of opposition from Apple, according to previous reports. The company’s new plan to address some of its financial troubles is also said to entail a formal agreement to sign off on some upfront losses and facilitate the process of taking advantage of various tax write-offs in Japan. The exact specifics of that strategy haven’t been disclosed by industry sources, though its result is supposedly estimated to be enough to bring its liabilities down to a level that’s below the total value of its assets, at least if coupled with the rumored $5.3 billion investment.
Following the bankruptcy of its U.S. nuclear business Westinghouse Electric Company in early 2017, Toshiba was left without the ability to cover its losses with loans due to a number of temporary sanctions placed upon the company in the aftermath of its 2015 accounting scandal which saw the firm overstate approximately $1.2 billion in operating profits and prompted its former CEO Hisao Tanaka to resign. While the sale of the firm’s flagship chip division would raise more than enough cash to allow the company to avoid having a negative net worth for two consecutive years, the global regulatory scrutiny of the deal that raises a number of antitrust concerns in the tech industry may delay the proposed transaction until it’s too late for Toshiba or even outright prevent it.