The Financial Times wrote on Monday that Toshiba is looking at various contingency plans, and notes that Toshiba is no longer under severe pressure to complete a sale. The firm recently issued 600 billion yen ($5.4 billion) in fresh shares and is free to walk away from the deal if it doesn't win antitrust approval by March 31.
Toshiba agreed last September to sell Toshiba Memory, the world’s second-biggest producer of NAND chips, to a consortium led by Bain to cover billions of dollars in liabilities arising from now bankrupt U.S. nuclear power unit Westinghouse Electric Co LLC.FT also wrote that some analysts and Toshiba shareholders favor an IPO over the existing deal.
But the Japanese conglomerate no longer faces the pressure it once did to complete a sale, after raising 600 billion yen ($5.4 billion) with a new share issue to overseas funds late last year, which with tax write-offs gives it sufficient funds to cover its liabilities.