Toshiba's Westinghouse
fired chairman two days before bankruptcy filing
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[April 05, 2017]
By Makiko Yamazaki
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Westinghouse Electric Co LLC fired its chairman two days
before the U.S. nuclear engineering unit of Toshiba Corp <6502.T> filed
for bankruptcy last week, as the Japanese firm tries to draw a line
under the travails of a business that has cost it billions.
Toshiba's spokesman said Westinghouse chairman Danny Roderick was
replaced by Mamoru Hatazawa, chief of Toshiba's nuclear division, on
March 27, two days before the Chapter 11 filing. Hatazawa's role would
be temporary, he added.
Roderick, described by industry and company insiders as more salesman
than engineer, was the driving force behind Toshiba's nuclear ambitions.
Toshiba said the executive change, only second at senior level reported
since the Westinghouse crisis began to unfold in December, was intended
to reassure clients in advance of the bankruptcy filing.
It declined to say whether Roderick remained with Westinghouse.
Calls to Roderick from Reuters seeking comment went straight to
voicemail.
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Roderick joined Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse as chief executive from a
joint venture of General Electric Co <GE.N> and Hitachi Ltd <6501.T>. He
took up his role in September 2012, a year after Japan's Fukushima
disaster brought the global nuclear industry to its knees.
In 2016, he took the helm of Toshiba's entire energy business, as the
group restructured following an accounting scandal in 2015.
He was moved back to managing just Westinghouse when Shigenori Shiga, a
former Westinghouse boss, resigned as Toshiba's chairman earlier this
year as the nuclear crisis grew.
In an interview with Reuters in 2015, Roderick said he was "pretty
confident" in achieving Westinghouse's goal of winning orders to
construct 64 nuclear reactors worldwide over the next 15 years. At the
time, the industry was still struggling to recover from the impact of
Fukushima.
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![](../images/040517pics/busine55.jpg)
CEO of Westinghouse Electric Company, Danny Roderick speaks during a
news conference at the Toshiba head office in Tokyo, November 27,
2015. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
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But
billions of dollars of cost overruns at four reactors under construction in the
U.S. southeast pushed Westinghouse into bankruptcy and resulted in a
near-crippling net loss of $9 billion at Toshiba.
At the heart of the meltdown was Westinghouse's troubled purchase of a U.S.
nuclear power plant construction company from Chicago Bridge & Iron Co NV in
late 2015, during Roderick's tenure.
Toshiba is investigating whether executives sought to influence accounting
practices in connection with that deal.
The Toshiba spokesman declined to comment on whether Roderick's dismissal was
related to the ongoing probe.
Toshiba has twice been forced to delay its October-December earnings report, in
part to continue that investigation.
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
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