Goal: sale by March

and along with it a tax burden which Toshiba wants to offset by writing down its Westinghouse losses.

That’s why Toshiba is eager to wash its hands of Westinghouse during the same fiscal year as it wraps up its memory sale — before the end of March.

Reuters reported in September that several private equity groups, including Blackstone Group and Apollo Global Management, are weighing bids. Neither Toshiba nor Westinghouse has confirmed this.

Any sale of Westinghouse will have to go through the bankruptcy court, as will all claims that Toshiba has or plans to make against the U.S. nuclear firm that employs 4,000 in the Pittsburgh area.

Westinghouse’s CEO Jose Emeterio Gutierrez has said he expects the bankruptcy to wrap up early next year.

“By the end of March, we at Toshiba will be aggressively supporting and cooperating to make sure that they can conclude their filing,” Toshiba’s executive vice president, Masayoshi Hirata, said during a call with analysts earlier this month.

Westinghouse’s bankruptcy is a huge endeavor with investigations still pending and claims still being filed, including a $4.7 million claim from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week.

The federal regulatory body that oversees the nuclear industry in the U.S. disclosed that it is currently conducting 13 investigations into Westinghouse’s conduct before the bankruptcy, with 11 of them looking into whether Westinghouse penalized employees for “raising a nuclear safety concern.”