Toshiba obtains qualified opinion from auditor

August 10, 2017

TOKYO- Toshiba Corp.said on Thursday it has obtained a "qualified opinion" from its auditor for its financial statement for the year ended last March, averting the risk of an immediate delisting of its stock.

The company's stock is unlikely to get delisted anytime soon from the Tokyo Stock Exchange as the struggling Japanese electronics and machinery maker avoided an "adverse opinion" on the statement from the auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata LLC. The statement was filed with the Kanto Local Finance Bureau on Thursday.

A qualified opinion is issued when an auditor finds a client company's financial statement to be partially inappropriate but understands that this does not significantly affect the overall report. An adverse opinion is issued when an auditor believes that a client's statement is misleading or misrepresented.

But PwC Aarata gave an adverse opinion on Toshiba's report on internal control aimed at preventing a recurrence of its accounting irregularities. The view may eventually affect a decision by the TSE on whether to delist Toshiba shares as the exchange is investigating the company's internal control following its accounting scandal.

Toshiba missed the legal deadline of the end of June to submit the annual financial statement due to a dispute with PwC Aarata over when the company recognized massive losses at its US nuclear operations. Toshiba disclosed the losses in December last year.

In May, Toshiba released provisional financial results for the year ended in March because it failed to obtain the auditor's opinion due to the dispute. Officially announcing the results on Thursday, Toshiba reported a group net loss of 965,663 million yen, the worst ever for a domestic manufacturer. Jiji Press