TOKYO, Dec 21 (NNN-NHK) – Japan’s Toshiba Corporation, yesterday, was delisted from the Japanese stock exchanges, ending its 74-year-long history as a publicly traded company.
The electronics giant saw its common shares delisted from the Prime Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Premier Market of the Nagoya Stock Exchange, on the trading day.
On their last trading day on Tuesday, shares of Toshiba closed at 4,590 yen (about 31.98 U.S. dollars), down 0.1 percent from the previous day.
“Toshiba Group will now take a major step towards a new future with a new shareholder,” the company said in a statement, as it now aims for reconstruction under a new management team that seeks to relist its stock in about five years.
A two-trillion yen takeover bid for Toshiba by a consortium, led by Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) succeeded in Sept, putting the scandal-tarnished Japanese electronics and energy giant in domestic hands, after years of battles with overseas activist investors.
The JIP-led consortium successfully secured 78.65 percent of Toshiba’s shares during the takeover bid, surpassing the required two-thirds majority needed, for the consolidation proposal’s approval, at the shareholder meeting.
In Nov, the procedures necessary to take Toshiba private were approved at an extraordinary meeting of Toshiba shareholders, offering the consortium the opportunity to acquire the remaining shares that were not part of its successful two-trillion-yen takeover bid.
Toshiba, one of Japan’s leading companies, was founded in 1875. It started as an electric appliance maker and gradually branched out into new business sectors, such as infrastructure and renewable energy.
Since 2015, Toshiba has been battered by accounting scandals, suffered heavy losses and came close to being delisted. It has also been engulfed in a series of corporate governance scandals. (1 U.S. dollar equals 143.60 Japanese yen)– NNN-NHK
