Toshiba approves plan to sell 20% of core memory chip business

Facing writedown, it aims to complete the sale by the end of the financial year in March

Toshiba Corp's board on Friday approved plans to make its core memory chip business a separate company and seek outside investment in it, aiming to avoid being crippled by an upcoming multi-billion dollar writedown for its US nuclear business.

The drastic step will be only one of many tough choices the Japanese conglomerate must take to survive, as the proceeds are set to cover just part of the charge for cost overruns at a newly acquired US power plant construction business - a figure that local media has put at 680 billion yen.

Toshiba's memory chip business - the world's biggest NAND