Toshiba's chairman quits after Japanese tech company delayed publication of financial results

Toshiba shares fell by more than 8 per cent on Tuesday and have lost around 50 per cent since late December

The company first flagged up the risk of a multibillion-dollar write-off in late December (Reuters)

The chairman of Japanese multinational conglomerate Toshiba resigned on Tuesday after the company warned it was set to book multibillion-dollar losses, according to AFP.

Toshiba said that it was postponing the full release of an earnings report that was expected to include billions of dollars in losses tied to its troubled US nuclear power business, sending shares down more than 8 per cent on the day.

Hours later, the company issued a forecast that said it was on track to report a net loss of 390bn yen ($3.4bn; £2.73bn) in the current fiscal year to March, prompting chairman Shigenori Shiga to step down.

The company first flagged up the risk of a multibillion-dollar write-off in late December. That warning at the time wiped more than $6bn (£4.9bn) off Toshiba's market value in just three days marking one of the worst-ever share declines for a major Japanese company.

For the April-December 2015 period, Toshiba reported a net loss of 479bn yen largely as a result of a profit-padding scandal, in which bosses for years systematically pushed subordinates to cover up weak financial results, according to AFP.

The engineering conglomerate, which makes everything from trains to memory chips, has been undergoing a significant restructuring since then. It’s already spun off its medical devices unit to Canon and most of its appliance business to China's Midea Group.

It is also moving to spin-off its memory chip business, AFP has reported.

Additional reporting by agencies