Toshiba to buy Shaw’s Westinghouse stake for $1.6B

Toshiba Corp. announced today that it will buy out The Shaw Group’s 20% stake in nuclear power-plant company Westinghouse Electric Co. for about $1.6 billion. In a prepared statement, Toshiba says it will tap into cash in hand and loans to buy Shaw’s entire stake in Westinghouse, adding that it will consider finding a new investment partner in Westinghouse while maintaining its majority stake. Toshiba says several potential partners have expressed interest in acquiring a Westinghouse stake. In October 2006, Toshiba paid about $4.2 billion for 77% of Westinghouse. Shaw agreed to buy one-fifth of Westinghouse, issuing $1.08 billion of bonds in a private placement to do so. Shaw was one of four minority partners originally recruited to join the 2006 deal, and was supposed to take a 5% stake, while Toshiba took 51%. After two of the investors backed out of the deal, Toshiba and Shaw increased their stakes. As part of its agreement, Shaw had the option to sell all or part of its 20% stake to Toshiba before the maturity of the bonds in January 2013.