Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Toshiba offers dive as it postpones critical profit report

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has seen its shares dive after the firm asked to delay releasing details of a multi-billion dollar loss.
It was expected to say it was writing off about $6bn (£4.8bn) at its US nuclear business.
But the BBC understands Toshiba has not been able to agree with its auditors over how big the writedown should be.
The financial chaos has led some analysts to warn the future of the firm is at risk.
Toshiba has asked regulators for an extra month before issuing its earnings report - which will include the size of the writedown.
Shares fell by as much as 9% on Tuesday and have lost around 50% since late December, when it first warned about the extent of the problems.
Chip deal
The losses are linked to a deal done by its US subsidiary, Westinghouse Electric, when it bought a nuclear construction and services business from Chicago Bridge & Iron in 2015.
Assets that it took on are likely to be worth less than initially thought, and there is also a dispute about payments that are due.
It has already announced plans to sell off part of its profitable memory chip business to try and shore up its finances. It is the second largest chip maker in the world, behind Samsung.
The company is still struggling to recover after it emerged in 2015 that profits had been overstated for seven years, prompting the chief executive to resign.
UK nuclear plant in limbo
As well as detailing its losses, Toshiba is also widely predicted to announce it is scaling back its global nuclear business - and possibly getting out of the sector all together apart from its operations in Japan.
Among the projects that would impact heavily on is a planned new power plant in Cumbria in the UK.
An artist's impression of Moorside nuclear plantImage copyrightNUGEN
Image caption
The Moorside nuclear plant on the Cumbrian coast is due to open in the mid-2020s
Toshiba has a 60% stake in Nugen, the company which has the contract to build the plant.
Should the Japanese company pull out of the project, the UK would have to look for other backers to step in with South Korea's Kepco a likely candidate.
Any changes to the current plans are expected to seriously delay the project, thought to eventually provide as much as 7% of the UK's energy needs.

No comments:

Post a Comment

thankyou for your comment .. please like and share for more news & articles