Sharp Corp’s main creditors Mizuho Corporate Bank and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group are considering extending about 200 billion yen (US$2.52 billion) in new loans to the struggling TV maker, Japanese media reported, sending its shares higher on Thursday.
The embattled company, with debt of 1.25 trillion yen (US$16 billion), is scrambling for money to refinance as much as 360 billion yen of short-term commercial paper and a 200 billion-yen convertible bonds maturing in September next year.
Mizuho, part of the Mizuho Financial Group, and Mitsubishi UFJ are set to lend about 130 billion yen at the end of August and another 100 billion yen next month and will seek collateral this time, unlike previous loans, media said.
The loans would come on top of the 60 billion yen in stopgap financing they provided to Sharp in July to help the company meet its debt requirements, various media outlets reported.
Shares in Sharp, which has shed more than a third of its value since the beginning of August, jumped 4.4 percent in morning trade, compared with a 0.6 percent slide on Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei average.
“Sharp is asking two major banks to consider an appropriate amount of loans,” said company spokeswoman Miyuki Nakayama, but declined to identify the banks involved, as well as the amounts being considered.