Toshiba to Implement Measures to Prevent Recurrence of Fraud

As seen in the below chart, the stock price of Toshiba (TOSYY) has declined since April 2015, after the disclosure of its accounting scandal and later due to the revised outlook for fiscal 2015. The company is now looking to educate its employees and management by trying to prevent the recurrence of such scandals.

Since November 18, 2015, Toshiba has been organizing accounting and awareness improvement seminars for its managers. Since November 26, it has also implemented seminars to train employees on accounting compliance as appropriate for their positions and work functions. Toshiba is also looking to review the budget development process to emphasize on cash flow and establish business plans to meet “voluntary and independent management” by in-house companies.

Toshiba is looking to start an evaluation system for the CEO and president of the company, in which 120 senior managers will hold a vote of confidence in January 2016. The firm will also conduct a survey of 177 executive managers, evaluating their leadership credentials objectively starting December 2015.

From November 23–December 11, 2015, Toshiba conducted an employee awareness survey of 83,000 employees in Japan and overseas, which had a 91.3% response rate. In 2016, the company plans to investor relations conferences for every in-house company to improve its information disclosure.

Toshiba’s main competitors include SanDisk Corp. (SNDK), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and Sony Corp. (SNE). SanDisk comprises 2.5% of the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH).