Toshiba To Be Delisted After 74 Years (reuters.com) 61
Toshiba will be delisted on Wednesday after 74 years on the Tokyo exchange, following a decade of upheaval and scandal that brought down one of Japan's biggest brands and ushered in a buyout and an uncertain future. From a report: The conglomerate is being taken private by a group of investors led by private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners that also includes financial services firm Orix, utility Chubu Electric Power and chipmaker Rohm. The $14 billion takeover puts Toshiba in domestic hands after protracted battles with overseas activist investors that paralysed the maker of batteries, chips, and nuclear and defence equipment. Although it is not clear what shape Toshiba will ultimately take under its new owners, Chief Executive Taro Shimada, who is staying in his role following the buyout, is expected to focus on high-margin digital services.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Get out from under all the activist investors and ESG bullshit and get back to the basics.
ESG isn't really a thing in Japan, and the investors were active precisely because Toshiba had drifted so far from the basics.
Private equity investors will be far harsher masters than activist minority shareholders could ever hope to be. For Toshiba, that is a good thing.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Private equity investors will be far harsher masters than activist minority shareholders could ever hope to be. For Toshiba, that is a good thing.
Depends on what goals the private equity folks have. Unfortunately private equity has traditionally focused on extracting value for themselves and then withdrawing via an IPO or further sale. The future of the company beyond a future IPO or sale is usually not a concern for private equity. All they care about is (1) extracting and transferring assets away from the company, often in exchange for future debt and (2) sprucing up the company for a future IPO or sale. The former is often crippling. The latter is either a Potemkin village veneer or an actual healthy restructuring, but unfortunately, the healthy restructuring is rare because it's hard to do.
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Unfortunately private equity has traditionally focused on extracting value for themselves and then withdrawing via an IPO or further sale.
Warren Buffett would like a word with you.
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For your information, PE funds are typically timebound - in the prospectus, it'll say something like "we're aiming for an exit window of 5 to 7 years" or something like that. The same person / firm could run multiple PE funds (i.e. act as the general partner), but each fund is managed separately and makes a commitment to its investors (limited partners), and the whole shebang is spelled
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PE firms specialize in setting up buyout deal on behalf of the partners. In this case Orix, Chubu Electric Power and Rohm. What happens to Toshiba is up to them, not just the PE firm. So you can't really say that they are being parasitic. They just put together deals.
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That's incorrect. PE firms don't just "put together" deals. They invest and manage too. In this case, the "group of investors led by private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners" are a consortium of investors, with JIP probably having the largest investment stake.
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Also, private equity is the new polite name for the 'leveraged buyout' corporate raiders of the 80s.Criticism of many such firms is quite justified.
https://www.investopedia.com/t... [investopedia.com]
"The leveraged buyout investment firms today refer to themselves (and are generally referred to) as private equity firms"
Re: Good (Score:3)
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In this case though, the private equity is all Japanese. They tend to be much less interested in liquidating industrial giants to make a quick buck.
The article describes the Japanese private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) in a paradoxical way:
This suggests that it know how to "extract value" in a parasitic way:
"In some past deals, JIP has worked with the likes of U.S. private equity firms KKR (KKR.N) and Bain Capital."
"Founded in 2002 with investment from Mizuho Financial Group (8411.T) and Bain & Co among others, JIP later became independent."
These statements suggest that they do not operate like KKR and Bain Capital:
"They have a very
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Get out from under all the activist investors and ESG bullshit and get back to the basics.
ESG isn't really a thing in Japan, and the investors were active precisely because Toshiba had drifted so far from the basics.
Private equity investors will be far harsher masters than activist minority shareholders could ever hope to be. For Toshiba, that is a good thing.
So not like it'd be in the USA where the 'activist investors' would be insisting they promote trans rights and put Dylan's face on every product?
Re:Good (Score:4, Funny)
Anybody:
You: Wokeism!
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Fox News must have made it a talking point today.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a classic "never be wrong" scenario.
Company doing badly: "Obviously they had too much ESG"
Company doing goodly: "They were smart enough to ditch all the ESG"
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The downside of running a Reich-wing mind control outlet is that they have to keep telling the same lies every single minute or their human-shaped drones will scatter aimlessly.
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Thanks for informing us about everyone you hate, but nobody fucking asked. There is no relevance to anything you just said. You're an obsessed little incel wackadoo.
Its the right of every gay person to show off their sexual activities in public!
How dare anyone try to take that away from the LGBTQ community. Sexual activity is fundamental to their identity.
Re: Good (Score:3)
Sorry, one of us must be in the wrong thread, this being the ESG discussion space. LGBTQ is the next room to your left, where the mimosas are being served. It's only lattes in here
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You have 11 straight pride months.
Yes, straight pride months where straight people parade around in their underwear, twerking in front of the kids etc.
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WTF are you talking about? Nothing in that article mentions or even hints at ESG. Anybody: You: Wokeism!
Now now, you can't use logic to stop that dude from excreting selective outrage.
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The same thing happens whenever someone mentions "neo liberalism." All of the ignorant loudmouths come out of the woodwork.
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So, you're saying that they foolishly wasted money by over-engineering their products?
Re: Toshiba makes some good stuff (Score:2)
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Re: Toshiba makes some good stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
No, he's saying Toshiba products like Zenith, JVC, Craftsman used to be quality products produced with pride, years of enjoyment backed by customer loyalty, are now produced with planned obsolence and are in fact can fillers.
Zenith hasn't been a good name for as long as I can remember. Maybe back in the 1960s? By the 1980s, it was mediocre at best. And it has been owned by LG (Goldstar) since the 1990s.
JVC and its sister company, Panasonic, still build good pro gear. Their consumer products, however, haven't been great for a while, thanks to the industry's general race to the bottom quality-wise.
Craftsman hasn't been great since they were bought by Stanley/Black and Decker. Now, they're just Black-and-Decker products with incompatible batteries. I guess their non-electrical tools are probably fine.
All of those companies, at least at the consumer level, got caught up in a price war, and the only way that ends is with everything being cheap garbage. Then again, I can't think of many other companies that can't be described similarly.
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JVC and its sister company, Panasonic, still build good pro gear. Their consumer products, however, haven't been great for a while, thanks to the industry's general race to the bottom quality-wise.
Just realized I missed a corporate transition there. JVC split off from Matsushita back in 2008 and merged with Kenwood. But the rest of the point still applies. Their pro gear is generally well respected. Their consumer gear is... consumer gear.
Re: Toshiba makes some good stuff (Score:2)
Their hand tools aren't fine. Under Sears, Craftsman hand tools were made in the USA and very high qualityâ"as one might expect given Sears' satisfaction guarantee. If a Craftsman tool "failed to give satisfaction," you could bring it to any Sears store and get a replacement.
Under Stanley/Black and D
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Well, towards the end of Sears, the Craftsman stuff fell off in quality. I remember about... 15 years ago I took my 3/8" drive ratchet in to trade it in (I'd stripped it. 20 years good service) for a new one. The new one looked identical, but where the bluing on the drive selector (the circular type) had worn down on the old one to reveal brass, the new one has worn down to reveal just steel. And the new one was stamped "china" in small letters, in spite of appearing identical to the old one which was stamp
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Privately held is the only way to go... (Score:5, Insightful)
Privately held companies are the only ones which are allowed to do much in the market and make disruptive change. Anything held by public shareholders will get mired in having to show earnings for this quarter with shareholders threatening to sue if a firm charges off some revenue for R&D or even fixing bugs.
I'm hoping Toshiba does not lose focus in their nuclear offerings. They are a world leader there, and with how much anti-nuke propaganda there is, being able to get a pre-assembled reactor and truck it on site is really the only way the US is going to see expansion in nuclear use, and carbon footprint lowering.
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Privately held companies are the only ones which are allowed to do much in the market and make disruptive change. Anything held by public shareholders will get mired in having to show earnings for this quarter with shareholders threatening to sue if a firm charges off some revenue for R&D or even fixing bugs.
Yep.
Some dumb asses demonize private equities because... feelings, but there's nothing inherently more moral or effective with public companies. Going public is simply a way to access more equity (via shares.) Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it doesn't.
If Toshiba has value left, the private equity firm will salvage it and make it work, and then decide whether to hold it or sell it (to continue as a private or public entity). If it is not salvageable, then it gets liquidated.
And people will get
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Some dumb asses demonize private equities because... feelings, but there's nothing inherently more moral or effective with public companies. Going public is simply a way to access more equity (via shares.) Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it doesn't.
There's a difference between privately held companies who have a long term vision and invest profits back into company infrastructure and people, vs a private equity takeover, which usually means a leveraged buyout saddling the firm with further massive debt, followed by cutting quality and staff to squeeze as much short term profit as possible, followed by a bankruptcy and fire sale.
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But is this actually a buyout from someone intending to gut the company for a quick buck (as happened to the likes of Toys R Us and the Sears/K-Mart empire) or are they genuinely interested in fixing Toshiba as a business?
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Nice wet dream (Score:2)
>> a pre-assembled reactor and truck it on site is really the only way the US is going to see expansion in nuclear use...
Nice wet dream you have there.
Too bad economics don't have any overlap whasoever.
Re:Privately held is the only way to go... (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it "anti-nuke propaganda" to point out that nuclear plants can't get insurance except under terms that leave taxpayers on the hook for 90% of the cleanup cost if something goes wrong?
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Toshiba no longer owns Westinghouse.
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I'm hoping Toshiba does not lose focus in their nuclear offerings. They are a world leader there
I hold Toshiba up as a prime example of how bad the nuclear industry is. You don't even seem to realise that the nuclear business from Toshiba doesn't exist. Toshiba has no nuclear capability or product offerings. They miserably failed to deliver on all projects (just like ARIVA did) culminating in a $2.3bn write-down of the entire nuclear division in 2016 bringing the grand total of costs to over a $6bn loss they made on their foray into the nuclear industry.
In the end they sold their Westinghouse assets a
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Nuclear offers the only means to rapidly phase out fossil fuels on a global scale
Nuclear doesn't offer "rapidly" anything other than generation of paperwork and red tape.
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Toshiba sold their nuclear business. It was losing billions a year and went bankrupt. They have zero interest in getting back into that.
Netcraft confirms (Score:2)
Toshiba is dying.
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Toshiba is already lifeless.
Unfortunately.
Google's turn (Score:1)
Been a good while since (Score:2)
Toshiba has been going astray.
I had a bad view of them since they sold submarine propeller technology to the USSR (and got caught for it).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I got one tiny tear... (Score:2)
...for the guys that fucked up the build on our nuclear plants.
No, on second though, looks like it won't come out.
Nope, I got nothing.
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They also left a lot of resellers in the lurch when they pulled the rug on their phone system business years ago. The way they treated their customers in that situation was shameful.
No tears here either.
Hopefully, they will rebuild (Score:5, Interesting)
Years back, I visited Toshiba as they were corporate partners with my employer (as were several other Japanese conglomerates). Toshiba engineers were more willing to engage, were easier to work with, and were diligent in their followups.
As a customer of various of their products, I was never disappointed.
I wish them well and hope their new private owners will rebuild.
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Having run afoul of design flaws in their HDDs more than once, I can't share your view of their products.