Toshiba seeks $5.4b cash injection to avoid delisting

TOKYO: Toshiba Corp. plans to sell shares to raise 600 billion yen ($5.4 billion) and will explore a divestment of its Westinghouse-related assets in a bid to avoid being removed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Selling its holding in and its claims against nuclear-power business Westinghouse will let Toshiba "significantly reduce" resources required to rehabilitate that unit, funds that can be focused on new businesses, the company said in a statement on Sunday.

With the cash from a successful share sale, Toshiba expects that the consolidated negative 750 billion yen on its balance sheet will be erased by the end of the fiscal year in March. Overseas firms, including Effissimo Capital Management PTE, are planning to make investments, it said.

The Japanese company is clawing its way back after an accounting scandal in 2015 that was followed by a multibillion-dollar loss in its nuclear operations in the US Toshiba has been under pressure to raise money, or see its shares delisted. The company is in the process of selling its chip unit to raise funds, but feared the deal wouldn't completed by the end of March as it needs to clear competition laws in different countries. Toshiba is selling its memory chip unit to a consortium led by Bain Capital.

Private equity firms Blackstone Group LP and Apollo Global Management LLC have teamed up to bid on Toshiba's Westinghouse unit and others are considering offers, people familiar with the situation said in September. The nuclear unit, which was contracted to build two power projects in the US that were both billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, filed for bankruptcy in March.