Toshiba's financial woes rumble on

Vendor will fail to publish audited full-year results on time, as takeover speculation continues

Toshiba's struggles show no signs of easing after its board confirmed it would yet again fail to release audited financial results on time.

Earlier this year Toshiba missed three deadlines to publish its quarterly results amid the chaos of trying to offload its NAND flash memory business, to cover $9bn (£7bn) costs in its US nuclear business.

The publicly listed firm has today announced that it will not publish its full-year results at its shareholders meeting on 28 June.

It will instead provide guidance on the full year, as well as an outlook for 2017 and an update on the sale of its memory business.

"The company expresses its sincere apologies to its shareholders, investors, and all other stakeholders for any concerns or inconvenience caused by this situation," a Toshiba statement read.

"At the ordinary general meeting, the company will explain its outlook for the full-year FY2016 business results, the status of the auditing process, the outlook for FY2017, and the newly rebuilt Toshiba, and the status of the process for securing third-party investment in the memory business."

Further delays to financial results have increased concerns that Toshiba will be delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which first arose when it filed unaudited accounts in April.

The filing saw the vendor report a loss of around £4.2bn for the nine months ending 31 December 2016, before admitting the results cast "substantial doubt" over its future.

A number of firms have been mooted as potential buyers for the memory unit, with Broadcom and a group led by investment firm KKR reportedly the current frontrunners.