Japanese companies start divesting

Japanese companies, faced with increasing debts and decreasing revenues, are spinning off units in an apparent bid to gain valuable foreign currency. Toshiba today announced in the UK that it would rid itself of its air conditioning unit and merge its operations with US based company the Carrier Group. Toshiba boasted formerly that it was the number one air conditioning company in the UK. Air conditioning aside, Mitsubishi said yesterday that it was licensing its CD recordable drives to a Taiwanse company called CMC Magnetic. From October, CMC will make Mitsubishi's CDRs under licence. The problem major Japanese companies have are compounded by economic woes, which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) put down to lassitude on the part of the country. Earlier this year, Toshiba licensed a large part of its DRAM manufacturing capability to Taiwanese companies. ®