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Toshiba Questions Its Future After Disastrous Earnings Report

On the heels of releasing unaudited third-quarter results,

Toshiba

is facing a possible delisting by the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the rumored sale of its chip business and other assets, and is questioning its own solvency in the near future.

“There are material events and conditions that raise substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” Toshiba said in announcing larger than previously estimated losses for the nine months through December.

Toshiba CEO Satoshi Tsunnwaka told the Tokyo press that the company will do whatever it can to avoid delisting after the company’s auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata, filed a disclaimer that it was “unable to form an opinion of the results.”

“The decision on any delisting is for the stock exchange to make,” Tsunakawa said, “We will do our utmost to avoid it.”

Toshiba said its U.S. nuclear arm, Westinghouse Electric, rung up a $9 billion net loss for its parent due to significant cost overruns at four nuclear reactors under construction in the U.S. Westinghouse has filed for bankruptcy and is seeking a buyer.

Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported that Foxconn has offered up to $27 billion for the chip business, a much higher price than Toshiba expected. But such a deal would challenge Japanese regulators who may consider a sale to Foxconn as a risk to national security because of the buyer’s close ties to China.

Japan’s trade minister Hiroshige Seko told the press that Toshiba’s chip technology was important, not only for Japan’s growth strategy, but also in terms of jobs and information security. “For those reasons, we continue to carefully monitor Toshiba’s business conditions and sale of its chip business,” Seko said.

Toshiba has been on the Stock Exchange’s supervision list since mid-March after failing to resolve concerns about its internal controls a year and a half after a 2015 accounting scandal.

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