TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Toshiba Corp on Tuesday reported an 87.5% drop in third-quarter operating profit and cut its full-year earnings estimate for a second time.
It also said Chief Operating Officer Goro Yanase had resigned over the inappropriate use of entertainment expenses in 2019 when he was an executive at Toshiba Energy Systems and Solutions Corp.
Toshiba posted an operating profit of 5.3 billion yen ($40.4 million) for the October-December quarter, far less than a consensus estimate of 36.95 billion yen from four analysts polled by Refinitiv.
Toshiba lowered its operating profit forecast for the year ending in March to 95 billion yen from 125 billion yen.
The weak performance comes at a time when the beleaguered industrial conglomerate is assessing a buyout proposal from a consortium led by private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners (JIP).
The JIP consortium submitted its formal proposal last week, after sources said the investors had secured 1.4 trillion yen ($10.6 billion) in loan commitments for their buyout including a commitment line of 200 billion yen for working capital.
The final buyout proposal would also include an equity portion of about 1 trillion yen, the sources said, adding that many details of the potential buyout have to yet to be fixed.
(This story has been refiled to correct the spelling of officer in paragraph 2)
($1 = 131.8800 yen)
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)