Toshiba rubbishes reports that it's selling PC business

Toshiba Logo

Toshiba has announced it has no plans to sell its PC business, despite multiple reports saying otherwise.

Media named Lenovo and Asus as interested parties, but Toshiba denied the division is for sale, despite the firm being under pressure to sell assets to avoid being de-listed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

"Reports that Toshiba has decided to sell off the business are not grounded in fact, nor is it in discussion with any individual company."" the company said in a statement sent to IT Pro.

Asus was named as one potential buyer by Kyodo News, and the Nikkei and the Tokyo Shimbun a day later.

Lenovo also expressed an interest in buying Toshiba's PC business, Nikkei reported, as the division struggles to generate revenues from sales of its computers. PC sales accounted for just 3.5% of Toshiba's revenues between April and September this year and the company is still being plagued by losses from its now defunct US nuclear unit.

In September, it sold its memory division to investors led by Bain Capital in an attempt to free up some capital. However, the deal is taking a substantial amount of time to go through and so it may mean Toshiba misses its antitrust clearance deadline, which falls at the end of March.

However, Toshiba is adamant the deal will go ahead on schedule. "Toshiba intends to close the sale of TMC to the Bain Capital consortium by the end of March 2018. In the interim, the company is not considering a capital reinforcement of TMC by consortium member," it said in a statement.

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Clare Hopping
Freelance writer

Clare is the founder of Blue Cactus Digital, a digital marketing company that helps ethical and sustainability-focused businesses grow their customer base.

Prior to becoming a marketer, Clare was a journalist, working at a range of mobile device-focused outlets including Know Your Mobile before moving into freelance life.

As a freelance writer, she drew on her expertise in mobility to write features and guides for ITPro, as well as regularly writing news stories on a wide range of topics.