In another major blow to nuclear energy, Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday but the trouble doesn't end there as Toshiba needs to raise money by selling a stake in its chip division, which contains its NAND flash memory crown jewel. Bloomberg reports investors are severely disgruntled but approved the plan to sell the memory chip division. Toshiba received bids or interest from about 10 parties and hopes to raise at least 2 trillion yen ($18 billion).
“Toshiba is now a laughing-stock to the whole world,” one shareholder said during a question-and-answer section, raising his voice. “I think all of you are incompetent as managers. Do you even know what’s happening?” Another shareholder addressed the executives as “trash.”Toshiba is world's second-largest NAND flash memory chip maker.
Shareholders green-lit the envisioned chip-division sale anyway. The company has said it’s received some offers for its NAND memory business, a sale of which should be enough to restore shareholder equity to positive by the end of the next fiscal year. Bids are due Thursday and about 10 companies are said to have expressed interest.