Toshiba shares dived more than nine percent on February 14 after it surprised markets by delaying the release of financial results that were expected to include billions of dollars in losses tied to its US nuclear power unit. / AFP PHOTO /
by Miwa SUZUKI
Agence France Presse
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Toshiba shares dived Tuesday after it delayed the release of financial results expected to include billions of dollars in losses tied to its ailing US nuclear power unit.
The stock price plunged 9.45 percent to 226.2 yen at one point after it surprised markets by saying its nine-month earnings report had “not yet become available”.
The shares closed down 8.0 percent at 229.8 yen.
“We have submitted a request to extend the deadline” by one month for the earnings which were due on Tuesday, Toshiba said in a statement, citing ongoing reviews by its lawyers and an independent auditing firm.
The longer-than-expected review period is required to investigate information from a whistleblower which is linked to its US nuclear business, it said.
It was unclear if company executives would still hold a previously scheduled news briefing later in the day, according to a company spokeswoman.
The sell-off extended morning losses that were sparked by a report in Japan’s Nikkei business daily, which said Toshiba was going to issue a warning to shareholders that its future is in jeopardy.
Shares in the firm have almost halved since late December, when Toshiba first flagged huge losses in its atomic unit.
Earlier reports said Toshiba — one of Japan’s best-known firms and a cornerstone of its post-war industrial rise — was likely to log a net loss of more than $4.0 billion in the April-December period.
Mounting losses
The shortfall is linked to losses reportedly topping $6.0 billion at the troubled US nuclear business, once touted as filling a hole left after the 2011 Fukushima crisis slammed the brakes on new atomic projects in Japan.
The reported loss is related to problems with the value placed on a deal involving the purchase of a nuclear services company by Toshiba subsidiary Westinghouse Electric.
The Nikkei report said Toshiba’s mounting losses would force the company to warn investors over its ability to continue as a going concern in its current form.
It would be the first such warning by the group since its birth from a 1939 merger, according to the Nikkei.
Some other reports have said Toshiba chairman Shigenori Shiga and Danny Roderick — an executive and the former head of Westinghouse Electric — are expected to step down.
There is speculation Toshiba will dramatically reduce its nuclear operations and stop building new atomic power plants, but would continue designing and making reactors and other components.
It has approached South Korean utility Korea Electric Power Corp about buying part of Toshiba’s stake in British nuclear joint venture NuGeneration.
In April-December 2015, Toshiba reported a 479 billion yen ($4.2 billion) net loss due largely to an embarrassing profit-padding scandal, in which bosses for years systematically pushed subordinates to cover up weak financial results.
The engineering conglomerate, which makes everything from trains to memory chips, is undergoing a major restructuring after the accounting scandal and the losses in its nuclear business.
The company has already sold its medical devices unit to Canon and most of its appliance business to China’s Midea Group.
It is also moving to spin-off its memory chip business to repair its battered balance sheet.
© Agence France-Presse