Westinghouse Electric Company's Japanese parent Toshiba Corporation has been at the center of financial news this week with sources declaring the company, which is embroiled in a massive accounting scandal, may go so far as to shed itself of its nuclear business in Japan.
Toshiba's domestic nuclear power business has been hit hard by the moratorium that shuttered all nuclear power plants in the country after the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant northeast of Tokyo. The business slowdown has not been limited to Japan, however, and Westinghouse has also had financial difficulties. In November, Toshiba said Westinghouse had written down assets by $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2012 and 2013, The Japan Times reported.
On Wednesday this week, the company said it was demanding that five executives involved in the accounting scandal return more than $26 million to the company. The company also said it had paid a $62.5 million fine to Japanese regulators for accounting irregularities, which included overstating the company's profits by about $2 billion over the past seven years.
Among the source-attributed stories this week, it was noted that Toshiba's domestic nuclear business centers on the services for boiling water reactors, while Westinghouse, based in the United States, focuses on pressurized water reactors, which are more prominent in international markets.
Other spin off news has abounded across the Internet. Forbes reported that Toshiba is looking to sell its HDD (hard disc drive) business to adapt to a changing market that has seen declines in personal computer sales, while mobile devices dominate the marketplace. As such, Toshiba is expected to hold onto its flash memory business.
Sources also say Toshiba could sell its Toshiba Medical Systems business, which, according to The Japan Times, could net Toshiba $4 billion, should the company let go of 80 percent of its holdings.
In another move to build investor confidence, Toshiba said on Wednesday that it would fire the ShinNihon accounting company, which had worked for the corporation for more than 60 years, but failed to identify the accounting scandal. In its place, Toshiba said it would hire auditing giant PricewaterhouseCoopers to replace them.