Struggling Toshiba to sell 95% of its TV unit to Hisense

[midian182]

The fallout from Toshiba’s 2015 accounting scandal never really went away. The Japanese company cut jobs and sold off parts of its business to try and recover, but it continues to struggle today. Now, the electronics group has announced an agreement to sell 95 percent of its Television and other visual products subsidiary to Hisense Group.

Toshiba announced the 12.9 billion yen ($113 million) deal Tuesday. Providing it gains regulatory approval, the sale is set to be completed by or after February 2018. Toshiba will retain a 5 percent stake in the subsidiary.

Two years ago, Toshiba executives were caught inflating the company’s profits by $1.9 billion over a seven-year period. It led to CEO Hisao Tanaka and vice president Norio Sasaki handing in their resignations, the elemination of 7800 jobs, and the company taking on a $4.5 billion loss.

But the Hisense sale has also been prompted by Toshiba’s massive losses in the nuclear industry. The 2011 Fukushima disaster saw increased safety regulations introduced, which slowed down progress on the reactors Toshiba had been building in the US. Earlier this year, the company’s US-based nuclear operations at Westinghouse Electric Co. filed for bankruptcy.

Toshiba is also selling its chip business to a multinational consortium consisting of Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, Bain Capital Private Equity LP and Development Bank of Japan, but its US joint venture partner Western Digital has turned to a San Francisco court to try and block the sale.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/71893-struggling-toshiba-sell-95-tv-unit-hisense.html

 

[nismo91]

They did this to themselves. I used to own a nice LCD from Toshiba and traded it in for a newer one to found it much inferior, even compared to those budget chinese offering. few years later I couldn't even find those "regza" units in local stores anymore.

back in 1983 Toshiba patented the Toslink which we later know as "optical" audio. it uses the same digital format as SPDIF (coaxial) format from Sony & Philips. it was well adopted before the rise of HDMI which allows uncompressed multichannel audio instead.

30 years later, the inventor succumbed to despair. good thing they have business in other industries.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

When you think about how much Broadcom is willing to pay for Qualcomm, $113 million sounds like peanuts. Personally I've never, ever come across a Toshiba TV in my country but Hisense TV's can be bought from (ahem) our street vendors. The problem with that is that they probably 'inherited' then from somebody's living room.

 

[David from LA]

This article danced around the issue but never explained why these fire sales are taken place.

The nuclear plant debacle created a contingent liability on their consolidated books of $3.6 billion (could be more), which pushed their Japanese market capitalization to a negative amount... they are listed in Tokyo. So they are desperately selling off their more profitable segments to remain listed on the exchange. Yes, this is due to a series of mismanagement and bad investments but this is the direct reason why the fire sales are taken place. Just in case you guys are curious

 

[kissx]

They did this to themselves. I used to own a nice LCD from Toshiba and traded it in for a newer one to found it much inferior, even compared to those budget chinese offering. few years later I couldn't even find those "regza" units in local stores anymore.

back in 1983 Toshiba patented the Toslink which we later know as "optical" audio. it uses the same digital format as SPDIF (coaxial) format from Sony & Philips. it was well adopted before the rise of HDMI which allows uncompressed multichannel audio instead.

30 years later, the inventor succumbed to despair. good thing they have business in other industries.

I got a Regza 52 inch tv in 2009. half of the screen went blank after one year.

 

[captaincranky]

When you think about how much Broadcom is willing to pay for Qualcomm, $113 million sounds like peanuts. Personally I've never, ever come across a Toshiba TV in my country but Hisense TV's can be bought from (ahem) our street vendors. The problem with that is that they probably 'inherited' then from somebody's living room.

The only thing I've ever come across built by Toshiba which was truly spectacular, was their VCR product.

The DVD drive which came with my eMachines was an abomination, with flagrant disregard for DVD blanks, which BTW, were a dollar a pop at that time. In fact, the damned thing was so stupid, it couldn't read its own writing.

Fast forward to 2017, with my free standing Toshiba DVD recorder now refusing to load & play DVDs, with the problem being explained as a "disc error". Oh well, how many DVDs did I expect to be able to record with the damned thing, certainly not more than the less than a hundred I did. I guess I'm guilty of one of the 7 deadly sins...greed.

So, the quicker Toshiba goes away, the happier I'll be. Like I said, you have to go back more than 20 years to find truly stellar product from them...... the (now) lowly, VCR.

 

[captaincranky]

I got a Regza 52 inch tv in 2009. half of the screen went blank after one year.

You know who, (IMHO, of course), makes a great flat panel TV, (you'll never guess)...., Funai!

(And you'd never know it, because they rarely admit to it, being a mostly OEM manufacturer).