“Sharp, a century-old stalwart of corporate Japan, has unveiled an annual loss of $1.9bn and warned of ‘material uncertainty’ about its ability to stay in business, less than three years after facing a similar crisis of survival,” Kana Inagaki reports for The Financial Times. “Undeterred, banks are once again pumping money into Sharp, a process analysts have criticised as hindering underperforming companies from implementing bold turnround steps.”
“The maker of display screens for Apple on Thursday reported a net loss of Y222.35bn ($1.9bn) for the financial year that ended in March,” Inagaki reports. “That compares with a profit the previous year of Y11.6bn and an earlier target of a Y30bn loss.”
“‘There exist events or conditions that may cast a material uncertainty about Sharp’s ability to continue as a going concern,’ it said in its earnings statement,” Inagaki reports. “The turnround plan that Sharp unveiled on Thursday resembled its previous restructuring measures: axing 10 per cent of its global workforce, including 3,500 jobs in Japan, and the sale of its head office in the west of the country.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The saga continues.
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So what in the world are they doing over at Sharp? They have decent HDTVs and make mobile screens. Are they stuck with huge overhead? What would it take to clean them up?
Obviously, parts of the company make plenty of money. But it may require bankruptcy (or Japanese equivalent) to cast off the dying divisions and legacy costs. I’d make the attempt at casting off the profitable divisions then letting the rest die as ‘Sharp’, the late company.
Sad really. They are a decent company, from my perspective.
In other news, a janitor cleaning behind a file cabinet at Apple HQ discovers $1.9 billion amongst several dust bunnies. “It must’ve slipped behind there somehow, and nobody noticed it. I cleaned real good back there, but I think they just threw the cash away because it was too dusty.”