(FT) Conglomerate Toshiba Corporation is planning to split the company into three entities and shelving calls to take the whole company private.
Upon split, one division will hold the company’s infrastructure, nuclear, and heavy engineering operation, including sensitive technology. The other division will handle asset management, while Toshiba Tec, a retail machinery manufacturer, will be the third.
The company split counters calls by some disgruntled investors who have demanded the company be taken private or undergo radical restructuring.
Toshiba expects the split to allow each entity to increase its focus while also enhancing agile-decision making and cost control.
Toshiba’s move is partly seen to encourage its activist shareholders to leave, with the plan having been arrived at after a five-month strategic review.
CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa says Toshiba would have chosen the move irrespective of the presence of activist shareholders. Satoshi says even Japan’s trade ministry has not objected to the proposed move.
The proposed split now awaits the approval of shareholders, with some reportedly rejecting the move.
6502: TYO is down -1.32%.
