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Brand of day: Toshiba

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By Rebecca Stewart, Trends Editor

July 21, 2015 | 3 min read

Welcome to Brand of the Day, where we pick the brand making headlines and explain what you need to know about why it's in the news.

Toshiba takes our brand of day crown following chief executive Hisao Tanak’s dramatic departure, which was announced earlier this morning.

Tanak is stepping down after an investigation found that the multinational had been overstating its profits since 2009.

Vice-chairman, Norio Sasaki and former president, Atsutoshi Nishida have also resigned; with current chairman Masashi Muromachi, set to take over as interim chief executive.

An independent panel established that the trio were involved in misreporting earnings of up to $1.2bn, according to BBC News.

The Next Web claims that Toshiba may have to consider selling property and other assets to aid its recovery.

The brand, which traces its history as far back as 1938, was founded when Tokyo Shibaura Electric K.K.merged with Shibaura Seisaku-sho and Tokyo Denki.

Today the electronics giant is one of Japan's largest companies and employs over 200,000 people with offices in Asia, Europe and the US. It is headquartered in Tokyo and has 436,540 registered shareholders.

Throughout its history Toshiba has celebrated many firsts.

It debuted the electric washing machine in Japan, as well as the electric refrigerator, microwave, and eventually the world’s first laptop in 1985.

Acquisitions have been key to the brand’s success, in recent years it has inked deals with nuclear power supplier Westinghouse Electric Company, Fujitsu’s HDD offering, Swiss energy management firm Landis+Gyr and IBM's point-of-sale business.

In December 2007, Toshiba took over from Discover Card as the sponsor of the highest screen in New York’s One Times Square, which displays the 60-second New Year’s Eve ball drop countdown. The lease is due to run out in 2017.

The tech behemoth announced its intention to reposition itself in 2014 to centre on the business PC market and said that it would lose around 900 staff in process.

Today’s scandal was first revealed when regulators discovered issues in the company's balance sheet earlier this year.

The damming report which led to the executives' departures cited that: "Inappropriate accounting was systematically carried out as a result of management decisions... betraying the trust of many stakeholders.”

Tanaka told a media conference that he and his colleagues "have a serious responsibility," and that the firm would need to "build a new structure'' to reform.

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