Toshiba has also announced its intention to sell the majority of its shares in its Toshiba Carrier Corporation (TCC) air conditioning business (AFP/Archives/Kazuhiro NOGI)
Japanese industrial and technology conglomerate Toshiba announced on Monday its intention to split into two independent companies, reversing the separation into three entities previously considered due to the complexity and cost of the procedures involved.
According to this new plan which must be submitted for the agreement of its shareholders next month, the group, under pressure from its shareholders to maximize its value, wants to create a separate company combining its activities in electronic devices and data storage. by March 2024 and to list it on the stock exchange, details a press release.
Toshiba says it has revised its plan announced last November, described as “the first large-scale split in Japan”, after having identified “obstacles that were not initially foreseen”, and in order to “significantly reduce costs” and the uncertainty related to the split.
The group also announced on Monday its intention to sell the majority of its shares in its Toshiba Carrier Corporation (TCC) air conditioning business to the American Carrier Global, with which it holds this joint venture created in 1999.
Toshiba, which would reduce its stake in TCC from 60% to 5% according to a press release, explains that it is in its view “the best way to fully exploit the potential and the value of its activities in the field of air conditioners. “.
Several media including the Japanese daily Nikkei had announced on Friday this sale as well as the change in orientation of Toshiba compared to previous announcements of reorganization.
The Japanese group announced last November its intention to split into three entities by creating two new companies which were to combine Toshiba’s activities in energy and infrastructure on the one hand, and in electronic devices and data storage. on the other hand.
The third was to be formed from the rest of Toshiba, to manage the roughly 40% stake it currently holds in Kioxia, the Japanese memory chip giant, and its shares in its separately listed subsidiary Toshiba Tec (office automation devices and retail trade).
The announcement had aroused contrasting reactions at the time, and the opposition in particular of its second largest investor (with around 7.5% of the shares), the activist fund 3D Investment Partners.
This fund had, at the beginning of January, urged Toshiba to consider other strategies and demanded the holding of an extraordinary general meeting and a vote of the shareholders on this question.
© 2022 AFP
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