Toshiba Corp said it would raise ¥600 billion (US$5.35 billion) from a sale of new shares, a key step that would allow the troubled conglomerate to remain a publicly traded company even if the sale of its chip unit is delayed.
Toshiba’s board on Sunday met and approved a plan to raise ¥600 billion by offering new shares to 60 overseas investors who have signed up for the deal, the company said.
The company would also explore a divestment of assets related to its bankrupt US nuclear power business, Westinghouse Electric Co LLC, the company said.
Toshiba needs to raise ¥750 billion by the end of March next year to plug a balance sheet hole left by Westinghouse, or the company will be delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The company would use proceeds from the share sale to pay off liabilities related to Westinghouse and book losses that would allow tax write-offs sufficient to boost its assets back above liabilities, the company said.
The share sale, together with the tax write-offs, would boost Toshiba’s balance sheet by at least ¥840 billion in total, it said.
Toshiba is to issue the new shares at ¥262.8 per share, a 10-percent discount to Friday’s closing price of ¥292.
Payments from investors for the new shares are to be completed on Dec. 5, the company said.
Singapore-based fund Effissimo Capital Management Pte Ltd, established by former colleagues of Japan’s most famous activist investor Yoshiaki Murakami, are to become the largest shareholder in Toshiba with an 11.34 percent stake.
Toshiba 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. The company agreed in September to sell its prized chip unit — Toshiba Memory Corp — to a group led by Bain Capital LP for US$18 billion.
However, potentially lengthy regulatory reviews in different countries mean the deal might not close before the end of March.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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