Toshiba to terminate 74-year history on stock market

Toshiba, a big and old company from Japan, will stop being on the stock market after 74 years because a group of investors has bought most of the company’s shares.

The company says that a group led by a private investment company called Japan Industrial Partners has bought 78. 65% of its shares.

By owning more than two-thirds of the firm, the group has the ability to finalize a $14 billion deal to make it a private company.

The company’s history goes back to 1875 when it first started making devices for telegraphs.

According to the agreement, the company’s shares may be removed from the stock market by the end of this year.

The company’s president and CEO, Taro Shimada, said that the company is making a big move towards a new future with a new owner, Toshiba.

Toshiba’s stocks began being bought and sold in May 1949 when the Tokyo Stock Exchange opened after World War Two ended.

The company has different parts that make things for homes and even nuclear power plants. It became a symbol of Japan’s economic improvement and its technology industry for many years after World War 2.

In 1985, Toshiba introduced the first laptop computer that was available to the general public.

For many years after World War Two, Toshiba represented Japan’s economic comeback and its advanced technology industry.

But the company in Tokyo has had many big problems in the past few years.

“Toshiba’s disaster happened because the people in charge of the company did not do a good job of making important decisions,” said Gerhard Fasol, who runs a company that gives advice to businesses called Eurotechnology Japan, when talking to the BBC.

In 2015, the company admitted to saying its profits were higher than they actually were by over $1 billion for six years. They were fined 7. 37 billion yen (equivalent to $47 million or £38 million), which was the largest fine ever given in that country at that time.

Two years later, it was discovered that its US nuclear power business, Westinghouse, had experienced significant financial losses. This led to a 700 billion yen reduction in the company’s value.

To prevent going broke, the company decided to sell its memory chip business in 2018. This business was highly valued and important for the company.

Since then, Toshiba has been offered to be taken over by different companies, including one from a UK private equity group called CVC Capital Partners in the year 2021. However, Toshiba did not accept this offer.

In that same year, it was discovered that the company had worked together with the Japanese government to harm the profits of investors from other countries.

Mr Fasol explained that many Japanese people, including the government, consider Toshiba to be very important and valuable. However, he also mentioned that this view of Toshiba is causing some issues.

The company then said it would split into three different businesses. The plan was changed within a few months. The company’s board decided to divide the company into two parts instead.

The company’s board said they were thinking about accepting JIP’s offer to make the company private, before they started the breakup plan.

“The company must make significant changes to itself after separating some of its main business divisions, particularly its semiconductor group,” explained Marc Einstein, the main analyst at ITR Corporation, a research and consulting firm located in Tokyo.

Toshiba was also a well-known company that joined the trend of Japanese firms becoming privately owned in order to avoid being responsible to shareholders.