Toshiba has warned its survival is at risk as it released delayed financial results showing huge losses that its auditors were unable to approve.

"There are events and circumstances that may bring about significant questions about the idea of (carrying on) as a going concern," said the company in a statement accompanying the unaudited figures.

They showed a loss of 532.5bn yen (£3.9bn) in the nine months to December 2016 and suggested annual losses to the end of March were on track to come in at 1.1tn yen (£8bn).

The company, a colossus of corporate Japan with 188,000 employees globally, had been threatened with expulsion from the Tokyo Stock Exchange unless it met the extended deadline of Tuesday to file its accounts.

Image: Toshiba's president, Satoshi Tsunakawa, has apologised for the crisis

Financial regulators granted it more time on two occasions as Toshiba grappled with a series of problems at its Westinghouse Electric nuclear division, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the US last month.


The threat of Toshiba being delisted remains because auditors were unable to sign off the accounts.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Arata blamed complexities around Westinghouse's takeover of nuclear construction firm CB&I Stone and Webster in 2015.

Toshiba boss, Satoshi Tsunakawa, told a news conference he regretted the auditor's opinion but decided to press ahead with presenting the results rather than seek a further, unprecedented, delay.

"The decision on any delisting is for the stock exchange to make. "We will do our utmost to avoid it," he said.

The crisis has left Toshiba under pressure to raise cash to cover its financial woes to the extent that it may sell its flagship memory chip business - the second-largest in the world behind Samsung.

Taiwan's Foxconn is offering $27bn (£21.7bn) to buy it, local media reported.

Toshiba's troubles are also casting doubt over the planned Moorside nuclear power station in Cumbria, where it is due to provide the three reactors.

Image: A mock-up of the planned Moorside plant in Cumbria. Pic: NuGen

Toshiba announced a week ago that it had been forced to buy up a French utility firm's stake in the NuGen vehicle after it decided to pull out of their joint venture.

Toshiba has been gripped by whistleblower allegations of accounting cover-ups dating back to the financial crisis, while business has been hurt by cost over-runs and the Fukushima disaster in 2011, which prompted Japan and Germany to move away from nuclear technology.

The problems have resulted in Toshiba losing more than half its market value since December, with investors branding the company a "laughing stock" at a recent shareholder meeting.

The delayed financial results were revealed after financial markets had closed for the day in Japan.