The company has announced<\/a> that a consortium led by private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) has purchased 78.65% of its shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Owning more than two-thirds of the firm allows the group to complete a $14bn (\u00a311.4bn) deal to take it private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The firm’s roots date back to 1875, as a maker of clocks and mechanical dolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the deal its shares could be taken off the stock market as early as the end of this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The company “will now take a major step toward a new future with a new shareholder,” Toshiba’s president and chief executive officer, Taro Shimada, said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toshiba’s shares started trading in May 1949 when the Tokyo Stock Exchange reopened as Japan emerged from the ravages of World War Two (WW2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its divisions range from home electronics to nuclear power stations, and for decades after WW2 was a symbol of the country’s economic recovery and its high technology industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However the Tokyo-based company has faced a number of major setbacks in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Toshiba’s catastrophe is a consequence of inadequate corporate governance at the top,” Gerhard Fasol, chief executive of business advisory firm Eurotechnology Japan told the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2015, it admitted to overstating its profits by more than a $1bn over six years and paid a 7.37bn yen ($47m; \u00a338m) fine<\/a>, which was the biggest in the country’s history at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two years later, it revealed major losses at its US nuclear power business, Westinghouse, taking a 700bn yen writedown<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To avoid bankruptcy it sold its memory chip business in 2018, which was seen as a crown-jewel in the company’s portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since then Toshiba has received several takeover offers, including one from UK private equity group CVC Capital Partners in 2021<\/a>, which it rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same year, the company was found to have colluded with the Japanese government<\/a> to suppress the interests of foreign investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Toshiba, in the eyes of many Japanese people and especially government, is a national treasure, which is part of the problem,” Mr Fasol said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Toshiba](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/5A72\/production\/_131145132_gettyimages-948326194.jpg\")