(Bloomberg) — Elliott Investment Management said it’s a “significant investor” in Toshiba Corp., at a time when the board is still deciding whether to take the troubled company private.
“Our investment in Toshiba reflects our strong conviction in the company’s underlying value,” an Elliott spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We have been encouraged by the constructive nature of our engagement with the company in recent months.”
The Financial Times earlier broke the news on Elliott’s stake, adding that the activist’s stake was understood not to exceed 5%.
Toshiba’s board is currently weighing a decision on whether it should pursue going private, after a strategic review prompted by an activist-shareholder rebellion earlier this year led to the ouster of the chief executive officer and a board member.
Toshiba started weighing options including privatization in May after weeks of takeover discussions sparked by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners’ $21 billion acquisition bid. Investors have pressured the Japanese energy-to-electronics conglomerate to explore any serious interest in the company to rebuild shareholder trust.
Once a storied name in Japan, Toshiba has faded dramatically after years of management missteps. It paid a record fine in an accounting scandal and then lost billions on a bungled foray into nuclear power. The conglomerate invented flash memory three decades ago, but was forced to sell most of its prized chip business in 2018 because of losses in its nuclear-power operation.
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