Toshiba is all things an IPO of its prized memory chip business if an agreed $18 billion available of the unit to Bain Capital fails to gain antitrust approval by the end of Parade, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
The IPO is one of various contingency plans being looked at by Toshiba’s top directorships, and some analysts and Toshiba shareholders favour it over the existing see to, the FT said.
Toshiba agreed last September to sell Toshiba Tribute, the world’s second-biggest producer of NAND chips, to a consortium led by Bain Peerless to cover billions of dollars in liabilities arising from now bankrupt U.S. atomic power unit Westinghouse.
But the Japanese conglomerate no longer faces the squeezing it once did to complete a sale, after raising 600 billion yen ($5.4 billion) with a new due issue to overseas funds late last year, which with tax write-offs induces it sufficient funds to cover its liabilities.
Hong Kong-based activist investor, Argyle Thoroughfare Management, a hedge fund with $1.2 billion under bosses, has voiced opposition to the sale, saying it was no longer necessary.
A Toshiba spokeswoman said there had been no shift to fact that the company was working towards completing the sale of the marker unit.