Sorry, Toshiba, speak up ... What was that? A $6bn loss amid an accounting scandal?

Biggest dive into the red in company history expected

Life isn’t getting any easier for Toshiba: the accountancy-scandal-hit Japanese conglomerate has forecasted a wider net loss of ¥710bn ($6bn) for its fiscal year, which ends in March.

The worst set of losses in the company's history – it was founded in 1875 – are being blamed on restructuring costs, and amortisation of the energy and infrastructure unit.

Net sales for the full financial year are expected to come in at ¥6.2tr ($53.1bn), versus ¥6.65tr ($56.9bn) a year earlier; operating income estimates were reduced to ¥340bn ($2.9bn) from ¥430bn ($3.6bn). The net loss previously forecasted was ¥550bn ($4.7bn).

In April last year, it emerged that Tosh had inflated profits by $1.2bn since the start of the financial crisis, largely due to overly ambitious top line targets and a corporate culture that dissuaded staff from calling out execs on their crappy decisions.

A mega-restructure is taking place across global operations with 10,600 workers getting the boot, TV sales outside of Japan discontinued, the PC business scaled back in Europe, and rumors suggesting it is mulling a PC tie up with Fujitsu and Vaio.

For the three months to the end of December 2015, total sales fell six per cent on the year-ago quarter to ¥4.42tr ($37.9bn) and Tosh made an operating loss of ¥295bn ($2.5bn), some ¥431.3bn ($3.7bn) worse than the previous year's period.

The PC and TV business declined 27 per cent to ¥644bn ($5.5bn) and it recorded an operating loss of ¥66.8bn ($572m), down ¥28.2bn ($241m) on a year ago. ®