Toshiba posts €285m loss, first since sacking of top executives

7 Sep 2015

After two delays, Japanese manufacturer Toshiba has finally posted results for the previous financial year, with losses of 37.8bn yen (€285m) looming over a difficult year for the company.

The results were unlikely to favour Toshiba financially given that the report had been delayed twice, but this figure certainly won’t add to any sense of positivity in the company in the months to come.

The first delay to the posting of the results came amid huge scandal in the company last July, after it was found that the company’s top executives had been setting unrealistic profit targets amounting to just over 155bn yen (€1.1bn).

As a result, Toshiba’s chief executive and president Hisao Tanaka, vice chairperson Norio Sasaki and advisor Atsutoshi Nishida were all forced to resign for their part in the scandal.

A further delay to Toshiba’s results reveal came after the company had been deep in negotiations to sell off its shares in the Finnish financial firm Kone, which equated to 4.6pc of the company, valued at around €847m.

In a statement, Toshiba has confirmed that a new board has been appointed to lead the company through this scandal, with Shinzo Maeda, former president of Shiseido, as its head.

“The company expresses its sincere apologies for any concerns of inconvenience caused on this occasion,” the Toshiba statement said. “The company will revitalise its management structure and unite as a whole to make every effort to reform the Toshiba Group and regain trust.”

Among other reasons given for a poor showing in the financial results were major environmental disasters in the region, political changes in Japan and the company’s involvement in various lawsuits.

Toshiba sign image via Shutterstock

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com