JCNNetwork: Toshiba Corp., needing funds for investment after a record annual loss, raised 289.7 billion yen (US$3.04 billion) in Japan’s biggest stock offering by a non- financial company in eight years.
The stock, offered at 3.2 percent less than its closing price, was sold at the high end of a range indicated last week. Toshiba has lost 60 percent of its value in the past year, almost twice the decline in Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average.
About 500 companies worldwide have raised US$124 billion selling stock in 2009, 27 percent fewer issuers and 22 percent less in value than in the same period last year. The proceeds from the offering will help Toshiba invest in factories to compete against Samsung Electronics Co. in making chips that store data in cameras and mobile phones after last year’s net loss more than tripled the Japanese company’s ratio of debt to equity.
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