Following the sale of its chip unit earlier this year, Toshiba is making further moves to boost its financial numbers by the end of the fiscal year.
If Toshiba ceases to improve its balance sheet, it will leave the chip company with two consecutive years of negative net worth leaving it at risk of being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Now, according to reports from Reuters, Toshiba is looking to raise around $5.3bn by offering new shares in a third-party allotment.
So far the chip company has received proposals from domestic and overseas brokerages but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
Time is of the essence for the Japanese conglomerate as its shares closed at ¥297, falling 5.11%, giving the company even more reason to spin up a solution for its finances sooner rather than later.
Dealing with the fallout from the bankruptcy of its US nuclear business, Toshiba was forced to sell its profitable memory chip unit, with a Bain Capital-led consortium walking away with the prize for $18bn. According to a statement, Toshiba aim to recover its financial base by closing the sale of Toshiba Memory by the end of March 2018.
– Bain Capital takes the reins with chip unit
– TMC sale as it happened
– Toshiba not alone in financial difficulty
The push to find an injection in capital was announced by Chief Financial Officer Masayoshi Hirata as he detailed the company’s half-year results. Despite offering no specific details, the CFO said that a working group had been launched to consider options to raise capital in case the sale of the memory chip unit did not close in time.
The Japanese giant did report in its half-year results a jump in operating profit, recording a 76% increase driven mainly by the performance of its soon-to-be-sold memory chip business.
