Toshiba eyes stake sale in chip business

TOKYO: Toshiba Corp wants to sell a minority stake in its core semiconductor business and is considering potential buyers including US partner Western Digital Corp, a source said, as the Japanese group prepares for a multi-billion-dollar writedown. The laptops-to-engineering conglomerate, still recovering from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal two years ago, shocked investors in December by announcing major cost overruns at a US nuclear business it bought in 2015. That could now mean a charge against profit topping $4 billion. The exact scale of that number is due to be made final next month, Toshiba said. Toshiba does not have many options to offset the impact of a write-down of that size, which could wipe out shareholder equity.— Reuters