Empresas y finanzas

Toshiba Announces Agreement with Kazatomprom



    Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502), a global leader in nuclear
    energy, and Kazatomprom, a major supplier of uranium based in the
    Republic of Kazakhstan, today announced that they have signed a
    share-transfer agreement, under which Kazatomprom will become an
    indirect minority shareholder in Westinghouse Electric Company LLC.

    Toshiba will transfer 10 percent ownership of Westinghouse's
    holding companies to Kazatomprom, at a price of US540 million dollars.
    Toshiba will continue to control Westinghouse, owning 67% of
    Westinghouse through holding companies in the USA and the UK. The Shaw
    Group Inc., a major US engineering firm, owns 20% of Westinghouse and
    IHI, a Japanese heavy apparatus manufacturer, owns 3%.

    Toshiba and Kazatomprom have identified various opportunities and
    agreed to study specific collaboration projects as strategic partners.
    By welcoming Kazatomprom as a minority investor, Toshiba aims to
    enhance its global nuclear power business.

    The United States and Kazakhstan have a long-standing treaty for
    peaceful use of nuclear power, and Japan and Kazakhstan also agreed in
    April this year to reinforce a strategic partnership. The alliance of
    Toshiba, Kazatomprom and Westinghouse will contribute not only to the
    promotion of collaboration in the nuclear energy area among the three
    countries, but also to the expansion of nuclear power generation on a
    global basis to combat global warming.

    Toshiba and Kazatomprom plan to transfer these shares in about one
    month, upon completion of necessary regulatory procedures in the
    relevant countries. The agreement requires that any technological
    cooperation be consistent with U.S., Japanese and other countries'
    export control laws and international regulation of the industry.