Tokyo – Sharp removes thousands of jobs and is being restructured with … – The Express

Sharp will also issue new preference shares to the attention of its two major banks to repay debts.

“ We aim basically a 10% reduction of our global workforce ,” said at a press conference Kozo Takahashi, the group’s boss with a total of nearly 50,000 employees.

The Japanese pioneer of liquid crystal displays has reported a net loss of 222 billion yen ($ 1.7 billion) for the fiscal year ended in March and refrained giving a net profit estimate for 2015/16, due to the recording of impairment losses.

Sharp especially deducted on 2014/15 106 billion yen corresponding to the means of production of devaluations in LCD panels and solar plants in Japan and abroad.

Faced with this relapse in the red, the group decided a set of detailed measures on Thursday at a press conference in Tokyo.

In addition to the 200 billion yen provided by Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ the mega-banks and Mizuho, ​​the group will issue 25 billion yen of other preferred stock to the attention of a fund.

Sharp has also chosen to discharge its financial position through a capital reduction to 500 million yen instead of 120 billion now.

This slimming cure, rather unusual in companies of this size, “ aims to rapidly improve the financial position in order to prepare for the future a more dynamic and flexible capital policy , “explained the direction of Sharp.

In addition, the group will be reorganized. The main activities, including the major LCD (one third of group revenues) will be moved into five separate companies to facilitate partnerships bound equity participations with third-party firms.

The company Sharp, originally from Osaka (west), has recently been weakened by competition in segments of the solar panels and more screens of smartphones and tablets, as well as by adverse currency movements on offshore production of household appliances for the Japanese market.

During the past year, Sharp has seen its sales fall by 4.8% year on year to 2.786 billion yen. He accused an operating loss of 48 billion, against an operating profit of 108 billion a year earlier.

“ We have not achieved our sales targets, including LCD TVs, smartphones and tablet screens ,” admitted Sharp.

If this is added to larger loads of raw materials (including silicon for solar panels) due to long-term supply contracts.

Sharp shows, however, confident in its ability to stop the bleeding with these drastic measures adopted in urgency since hope a rise of 0.5% in revenues to 2.800 billion yen and an operating profit of 80 billion yen for the current year ending March 31, 2016.