Toshiba to sell stake in N-power firm Westinghouse

Japan's Toshiba Corp is in talks to sell a 36 per cent stake in its US nuclear power unit Westinghouse, though it is in no hurry to do so, the company's chief executive officer Norio Sasaki said on Friday.

The Japanese industrial electronics manufacturer's cash flow has fallen in recent quarters as a result of buyouts like that of Swiss firm Landis, and it wants to cut its stake in the US reactor maker to bring in cash for investment elsewhere, Sasaki told Reuters.

"We are in talks with six separate groups for the (Westinghouse) stake," Sasaki told Reuters, without giving details of how much Toshiba might make from the sales.

Toshiba partnered with local engineering firm IHI Corp to buy Westinghouse for $5.4 billion in 2006, at the height of the nuclear industry boom. Toshiba intended to keep its stake at 51 per cent, but was forced to pay an extra $1 billion to raise it after trader Marubeni Corp pulled out of the deal.

Since Toshiba bought the stake, nuclear power has grown less popular among many governments, especially in the wake of Japan's Fukushima radiation crisis last year, after which many countries froze their nuclear energy expansion plans.

Sasaki said that ideally, another American firm would take the 20 per cent of Westinghouse that Louisiana-based Shaw Group Inc is scheduled to sell back to Toshiba for $1.6 billion in January.