Toshiba to Sell Most Stake in Industrial Machinery Unit

Tokyo, March 2 (Jiji Press)--Troubled Toshiba Corp. <6502> said Thursday that it will sell most of its stake in Toshiba Machine Co. <6104> for 15.3 billion yen. Toshiba is trying to restore its financial health by selling assets, as it is bracing for over 700 billion yen in losses from its U.S. nuclear plant business. Toshiba will sell 18.1 pct of all outstanding Toshiba Machine shares in off-hours trading Friday morning at 506 yen per share, the closing price on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section on Thursday. Through the deal, Toshiba will gain a profit of 5.5 billion yen. Toshiba's stake will fall from the current 20.1 pct to 2.0 pct. The industrial machinery unit will buy back the shares that will be released by Toshiba. For the business year through March 2016, Toshiba Machine posted consolidated sales of 117.2 billion yen. In 1987, Toshiba Machine saw executives arrested for exporting machine tools to the then Soviet Union in violation of Western bloc export restrictions. Toshiba's then chairman and president resigned over the scandal. END