The stock climbed 2.6 percent to 1,080 yen as of 9:36 a.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, outperforming the 0.5 percent advance in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average. Keisuke Ohmori, a spokesman for Tokyo-based Toshiba, said on July 7 the company is in talks to sell part of its Westinghouse stake to Kazatomprom, a uranium importer and exporter.
Toshiba, which in October bought 77 percent of Westinghouse for $4.16 billion, may sell 10 percent to Kazatomprom in a bid to secure uranium reserves, Nikkei English News reported on July 6, without saying where it got the information.
Kazakhstan, which has the world's second-largest uranium deposits, will pay more than 60 billion yen ($486 million) for the stake, Nikkei said.
``A possible stake sale will bring in cash to Toshiba and reduce the burdens it shouldered when it bought the Westinghouse stake,'' said Yuichi Ishida, an analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities Co., who rates Toshiba shares ``neutral plus.'' ``Partnering with Kazatomprom may also guarantee a stable supply of uranium ore.''
Toshiba signed an agreement in April to work with Kazatomprom on nuclear fuel and power plant construction. Kazatomprom mines and processes uranium and has about 204.5 billion tenge ($1.7 billion) in assets, according to a statement from Toshiba at the time.
Via: Bloomberg
by Masaki Kondo
