Toshiba posts $318m loss in wake of profit- padding scandal

Toshiba said Monday it would book a $318 million annual loss to account for a billion dollar profit-padding scandal that hammered the reputation of one of Japan's best-known firms.

The vast 140-year-old conglomerate said that its shortfall for the year to March 2015 would be 37.8 billion yen ($318 million), reversing a previously expected 120 billion yen annual profit.

Toshiba left unchanged its previously announced 170 billion yen operating profit on sales of 6.65 trillion yen for its latest fiscal year.

But it said it could not supply forecasts for the current year to March 2016.

Investors cheered the revised figures as bringing a sense of closure to the saga, with Toshiba's Tokyo-listed shares jumping nearly six percent at one stage before closing 1.75 percent higher at 352.7 yen.

"There is a sense of comfort in that the company was able to get its earnings out," said SMBC Nikko Securities manager Chihiro Ota.

He added that other firms which have been dented by accounting scandals, including camera and medical equipment maker Olympus, bounced back after putting out their revised earnings.

"I suspect Toshiba will take the same course," Ota added.