Toshiba to sell US$134m worth of shares in molding machine affiliate

[TOKYO] Toshiba Corp said it will sell almost all its stake in affiliate Toshiba Machine Co for US$134 million as it scrambles for cash to stave off a financial collapse.

Toshiba Machine, which is a fifth owned by Toshiba, said on Thursday it will conduct a buyback of 22.37 per cent of its traded shares worth as much as 17.2 billion yen (S$212.045 million) from its parent and other investors.

The transaction will take place before the Tokyo stock market opens on Friday, at Thursday's closing price of 506 yen per share, the maker of molding machines and other manufacturing equipment said in a press release.

While Toshiba is offering a majority stake in its prized Nand flash memory business as it scrambles to fill a balance sheet hole left by a US$6.3 billion writedown of its US nuclear operations, it also needs to squeeze funds from other smaller units within its sprawling conglomerate.

The sale of the shares on Friday will yield a 5.5 billion yen pretax profit, a spokesman for Toshiba said.

The maker of washing machines, reactors, TVs and escalators last week announced plans to sell a coal-fired power plant in Japan for 22 billion yen.

Last month it said it had sold a 1.78 per cent stake in Japan Display, a company created in 2012 by combining the ailing display-making units of Sony Corp, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd.

Toshiba did not disclose how much it made from the sale.

REUTERS