Daily Management Review

Toshiba's top executive is stepping down


02/14/2017


Toshiba’s Chairman of the Board of Directors Shigenori Shiga is stepping down, the corporation said. This decision is explained by the fact that Toshiba had to postpone publication of its annual report for a month because of the need to take into account all negative consequences of a transactions held in 2015 in the United States. It is expected that the corporation will reserve $ 6.3 billion to cover losses, according to Reuters. Toshiba’s American division Westinghouse Electric in 2015 bought business for the construction of nuclear facilities CB&I Stone & Webster from Chicago Bridge & Iron company. Then it turned out that this asset was worth less than Toshiba believed, and internal audits have revealed that this asset is potentially problematic.



FuFuWolf via flickr
FuFuWolf via flickr
Shiga resigns as he assumes responsibility for damages, told the corporation quoted by BBC. He led Westinghouse Electric before heading Toshiba's Board of Directors in 2016. Shiga became top-manager of Toshiba as a result of personnel changes after the 2015 scandal, when the corporation had to admit that its leaders for years inflated financial results in reports. Toshiba then attributed $ 1.3 billion of excess profits in total.

February 14, the corporation revealed results of internal audits of Westinghouse’s monitoring system, which Toshiba bought 10 years ago from the British Government. It turned out that the system is not sufficient. As a result, Toshiba will have to check whether top managers Westinghouse put unacceptable pressure on the parties in negotiations with Chicago Bridge & Iron.

In 2016, Toshiba predicted that its net profit in the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2017, will be 145 billion yen due to recovery in the computer memory market. Loss of Toshiba amounted to 460 billion yen in the previous fiscal year. Now, the corporation announced that it expects a net loss at the level of 499.9 billion yen ($ 4.4 billion) for nine months ended in late December 2016 and another 390-billion-yen loss for the first three months of this year.

Toshiba had to make public its annual report on the night of February 14, but didn’t. The company promised to publish it a month later, on March 14, after consultation with auditors. The corporation warned that new figures may differ significantly from those previously sounded in audited financial statements. Toshiba has not yet managed to obtain approval of the auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata, told Reuters’ informed source. Toshiba and RricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata representatives refused to comment.

Toshiba also warned that it may intensify fund-raising, including possible sale of a majority stake in its unit for manufacture of computer memory chips.

After all these events, Toshiba’s quotes fell by 8% and its market capitalization reached 973 billion yen ($ 8.6 billion), which is less than half the figure for mid-December. About ten years ago, the corporation's capitalization was approaching 5 trillion yen. Once in December 2016 its stock fell by 26% on news that losses of the nuclear power plants unit surpassed $ 4.4 billion (500 billion yen), Toshiba asked for financial assistance from the Development Bank of Japan and other creditors, reported Bloomberg referring to newspaper Nikkei and its sources. December collapse of the corporation’s papers was the most significant since 1974.

source: bloomberg.com, reuters.com, bbc.co.uk