back to article Creditors urge Toshiba to consider bankruptcy – reports

Some Toshiba creditors are thinking the unthinkable, saying the company should seriously consider declaring itself bankrupt. The reason is that Toshiba now has more obligations than cash, and is worth less than it should be, threatening its ability to survive as a going concern. Toshiba has estimated its liabilities are …

  1. knarf

    Tish Tosh and your gone

    Was once the envy of the west.

  2. wolfetone Silver badge
    Trollface

    Hello Tosh

    Got $5 Billion?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bankruptcy is shameful in Japan...

    ...but not in the west, where its a badge of honour, bravery and might get you elected to places with responsibilities you barely comprehend.

    1. Hollerithevo

      Re: Bankruptcy is shameful in Japan...

      So brave a deed is it, that doing it four times makes you an Olympian god!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bankruptcy is shameful in Japan...

      They should just declare bankruptcy because the USA (corporation(s)) scammed them into an untenable position and the US Western Digital are being damned unreasonable; just like Greece should default because they are in depression! Sometimes retreat is the best option, so that you can recover/rebuild for future battles!

  4. Howard Hanek
    Unhappy

    Right

    NK MAY settle all their problems before then.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: NK MAY settle all their problems before then.

      If they do then we won't have to worry about getting downvoted here any more.

      No where's my submarine?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    The world never stops to amaze me...

    In Holland we have cable operators, for example the previous UPC and Ziggo. Back in the days they provided services through the cable such as Internet, telephone and television. But the bizarre thing is that especially in he beginning those companies only managed to generate revenue, but not a single dime worth of profit. And that went on for years and years to come. To make matters worse the customer service and overall happiness wasn't exactly that great as well. A company like UPC almost held a permanent place in "lists of shame" on television programs which kept consumer rights in mind.

    Right now Ziggo is still a thing yet it has been taken over by UPC which has been taken over by Liberty Global, and UPC more or less got merged into Ziggo (something I still consider somewhat of a sad development) and only recently did they manage to actually create a bit of a profit.

    Unfortunately not too many people bother to look at the global picture. Although they do manage to generate profits now (as far as I know) I always wonder about all those previous years where they effectively wrote down losses and revenue and not much else.

    I guess this is the modern way of doing business... Generate a gigantic depth, but ensure you become too big to just drop off and you can continue for the next dozens of years to come.

    1. John 104

      Re: The world never stops to amaze me...

      The company I work for never makes a profit. It is by design. Has Amazon EVER made a profit?

      1. eldakka

        Re: The world never stops to amaze me...

        Has Amazon EVER made a profit?

        Yes, yes it has. For the last 8 consecutive quarters (2 years) it has made profits:

        Q2 2015: $92m

        Q3 2015: $72m

        Q4 2015: $482m

        Q1 2016: $513m

        Q2 2016: $857m

        Q3 2016: $252m

        Q4 2016: $749m

        Q1 2017: $724m

        For a total of $3.7B over the last 2 years.

  6. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    FAIL

    The Ahole who ran that mock construction company suckerd Westinghouse good

    And they in turn suckered Toshiba good too. I'll bet it wasn't a happy day when the Tosh Board realized what had happened. :-(

    Lots of fail to go round here.

    The problem is the Westinghouse. section.

    Cut it loose, dig a big hole and drop it down it.

  7. swschrad

    what is Japan's equivalent of Chapter 7?

    because with obligations like Toshiba's, once they are in the court, liquidation starts to become a real option for the creditors. in the US, three major creditors can flip a reorganization plan into the trash and start liquidation hearings.

  8. cantankerous swineherd

    the good old taxpayer will pick up the nuclear bill, as ever.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fact check

    Are you sure your facts are correct on this one? Every other news outlet is reporting that the current bid for the chip operation is actually $18bn which is considerably larger than the $5bn deficit.

    1. Jon 37

      Re: Fact check

      The article currently says the bid is ¥2.2tn, i.e. 2,200,000,000,000 Japanese Yen, which Google converts to about $20bn, which is close enough to your $18bn. But:

      1) The flash business is already on the books as an asset with a book value. Selling it takes away that asset from Toshiba's books and adds a pile of cash instead. So the question is really whether the sale price exceeds the book value by $5bn or not.

      2) if the sale is delayed for 2 years due to legal action then it doesn't matter how much it might have sold for, it'll be too late to save Toshiba.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Fact check

        They appear to have stealth updated the article since I posted my comment. It didn't say ¥2.2tn it said $2.2bn originally and they specifically said in the original article that the current bid price was below the $5bn equity deficit.

  10. MJI Silver badge

    They need it and it serves them right.

    They are in my shit list for cancelling a film I wanted to see in the format I wanted and forcing me to pirate it.

    Yes the HDDVD debacle, and yes I did email the company and say I downloaded from Pirate Bay, copied it to the hard drive on my PS3 and watched it from there, because they cancelled the BluRay due to Toshiba bribery.

    Yes I did watch quite a few HDDVD rips where no BluRay like this.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mmm

    Ferranti anyone ...

  12. TheElder

    Toast for breakfast

    Remind me to not buy anything with the name Tosh on it.

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