Japan’s struggling Toshiba logs $436M loss in first half

TROUBLED Japanese conglomerate Toshiba said yesterday it logged a net loss of $436 million for the fiscal first half, as it moves to complete the multibillion-dollar sale of its chip business to restore its balance sheet. The Tokyobased firm said the loss was mainly due to the tax impact associated with the controversial deal to sell the chip unit to a consortium led by Bain Capital. The announcement came after the company said last month it was able to account for the tax expenses associated with the chip unit sale but not for the massive proceeds from it. The result of this was that Toshiba projected an annual net loss of 110 billion yen ($970 million). However, the company previously said the sale of the prized business should eventually boost the firm’s before-tax consolidated income by about 1.08 trillion yen. Sales over the six-month period came in at 2.39 trillion yen, a 5.1 percent rise from the same period a year ago. But the robust profits of the chip unit helped bring the firm’s sixmonth operating profit to a record 231.8 billion yen, more than double the same period last year. Over the full year, Toshiba said it was projecting sales of 4.97 trillion yen, as well as a record operating profit of 430 billion yen.