JAPAN’s Toshiba Corp (6502.T) is considering a large writedown for its Westinghouse nuclear power unit, a newspaper report said on Friday, while the company confirmed that the United States authorities are probing accounting at its US units.
Reuters reported that the developments cast a shadow over Toshiba’s efforts to draw a line under last year’s $1.3 billion accounting scandal by streamlining its bloated businesses, whose poor performances had been masked by years of false bookkeeping.
The Asahi newspaper reported that Toshiba is considering a 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion) writedown for Westinghouse, reviving concerns among investors that the value of assets and goodwill related to Westinghouse were overstated.
Nuclear power has become less popular since Toshiba’s acquisition in 2006, especially in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster which prompted many countries to freeze nuclear energy expansion plans.
