Toshiba misses date for Q3 statement

Japan’s Toshiba Corp failed to submit audited thirdthirdquarter earnings for a second time on Tuesday, gaingaining a one- month extension as it expands pands a probe into problems at its US nuclear unit Westinghouse.

With its financial woes deepening, ng, Toshiba said it would speed up looking at whetherther to sell a mamajority of Westinghouse even as it sought sought to reassure investors that it could have a future re without the unit or its prized memory chip business,s which has been put up for sale.

It will “aggressively consider strategic options” ” for Westinghouse, it said in a statement, although it did not mention a potential bankruptcy filing for the US- based nuclear company. Sources have said that bankruptcy lawyers have been hired as an exploratory step.

The conglomerate said its auditing committee had confirmed that certain Westinghouse senior managers had exerted “inappropriate pressure” in accounting for an acquisition of a US nuclear power plant construction company in its third- quarter earnings.

It now needs to check if pressure was exerted in preceding quarters as it will also file nine- month results. Toshiba will also expand the probe’s scope to see if there were “other inappropriate pressures,” it said in a statement without elaborating on what they could be.

Westinghouse has become the center of Toshiba’s latest crisis, after buying a US nuclear power plant construction company from Chicago Bridge & Iron in 2015.

Two US projects in Georgia and South Carolina handled by the acquired company have had cost overruns and Toshiba has already warned of a $ 6.3 billion writedown.

Liabilities attached to Westinghouse mean it is unlikely to be an easy asset to sell, despite attractive technology. South Korea’s Korea Electric Power Corp ( KEPCO) is seen as the only potential buyer, as it expands in nuclear after a successful deal in the United Arab Emirates.