The CFO of Canon said that it is “difficult to invest in Toshiba’s chip business” because Canon needs to “prioritise investment for its own growth”.
Channel News Asia reported that the Chief Financial Officer for Canon Inc said that “investing in Toshiba Corp’s chips business would be a difficult proposition for Canon Inc as it needs to prioritise investment for its own growth”.
Only a week ago The Recycler reported that Canon was considering investing in Toshiba’s chip business to help the latter “secure funds to make up for massive losses incurred in its US nuclear business”. Canon’s Chairman Fujio Mitarai commented that the chip business “has high value”, and that “we will positively consider” investing in the flash memory business, which Toshiba “plans to spin off” by selling a “20 to 30 percent stake via bidding”.
He also added that the semiconductor business “must be protected” in that “domestic companies should invest in Toshiba’s mainstay business”, with the investment “expected to attract hundreds of billions of yen, or billions of dollars, as a whole” according to Mainichi. Six companies including Canon are “likely to join the bidding”, such as Bain Capital and Permira in addition to Canon, which the news site calls “Toshiba’s long-time business partner”.
Canon was set to “make a final decision on the investment after receiving a formal offer from Toshiba”, which is planning “to retain a majority stake”, and which is selling the unit as “it is anticipating an asset impairment charge” of up to ¥700 billion ($6.1 billion/€5.7 billion) “related to its US nuclear business”. Toshiba has said that its nuclear division in the US is now under review.