Toshiba shares are demoted as losses soar over $5 billion

THE crisis at Toshiba is getting worse, as on Friday it admitted that losses for the last financial year will be worse than earlier estimates and its shareswere demoted to the second division of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

It has yet again delayed filing an earnings report — the sixth time since 2015 it has done so.

Losses for the year to March are now above the $5.2 billion (£3.9 billion) last predicted. That prompted the stock exchange to move Toshiba’s share listing to the second section of the Japanese bourse from August.

Toshiba, which has a stake in building a new nuclear plant at Moorside in Cumbria, has been battling an accounting scandal at its US nuclear arm Westinghouse. It hopes to sell that business but the matter is delayed by legal issues.

On Wednesday it announced it has selected a consortium led by the public-private Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) as a preferred bidder for its prized memory chip business. The consortium consists of INCJ, Bain Capital Private Equity and the Development Bank of Japan.

Toshiba said it believed that the consortium “presented the best proposal, not only in terms of valuation, but also in respect to certainty of closing, retention of employees, and maintenance of sensitive technology within Japan.”