Toshiba forecasts $1 billion loss: Report

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has reported that it expects to post a net loss of 110 billion yen ($970 million) this financial year following the sale of its memory chip business, according to a report by Reuters.

The loss will come instead of its previously forecast net profit of 230 billion yen due to taxes incurred during the sale of the chip business, although its revenue forecast remains unchanged, Reuters reported.

Toshiba had last month announced that it would be selling its memory chip business for 2 trillion yen to a consortium led by Bain Capital that includes Seagate and is backed by the Japanese government.

As part of the sale, Toshiba said it would be investing 350.5 billion yen into the memory chip unit, maintaining some ownership over it, and last month said that it expected to close the deal "within days".

The tech company had originally named Bain as its preferred bidder back in June, although the sale had been slowed down after joint venture partner Western Digital had struggled to submit a competing bid alongside KKR after its original bid was rejected.

As a result, Toshiba announced in June that it was planning to sue Western Digital for 120 billion yen, claiming the latter had interfered in the sale of the memory chip business.

Western Digital had "continually interfered with the bid process" and "exaggerated" the power it had in relation to a potential sale, Toshiba claimed, and also made moves to prevent Western Digital employees in its Yokkaichi plant from accessing information pertaining to their partnership.

Reuters said the delayed sale could potentially lead to Toshiba "not getting anti-trust clearance before the end of the financial year", which could in turn result in the Tokyo Stock Exchange delisting the company.

The sale of Toshiba Memory, which is expected to complete by March 2018, was an effort by the company to make up the losses it suffered after selling its nuclear power business Westinghouse Electric.

Toshiba's Westinghouse subsidiary had been forced to file for bankruptcy protection in March this year, resulting in a $6.3 billion write-down for Toshiba.

Toshiba posted a net loss of 965.7 billion yen for the financial year ending March 31, 2017, and after continually delaying its financial results announcement as a result of the troubles, it was demoted to the second rung of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The company's Westinghouse problems are continuing, with the Japanese Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission last week announcing that it would be investigating Toshiba over its Westinghouse financial reports, as Reuters reported.

Toshiba in April similarly announced that it is considering selling off its Moorside development company NuGeneration, while Toshiba president Satoshi Tsunakawa reportedly took a pay cut to help keep the company in business.

Toshiba had also delayed its financial results announcements twice in 2015, following a 150 billion yen accounting scandal wherein it had overstated its profits for seven years, leading to the resignations of former Toshiba presidents Hisao Tanaka and Norio Sasaki.

Toshiba sold off its PC business as part of a major restructuring effort almost two years ago, offing around 7,000 employees at the time.

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