Toshiba Corp. said Friday it has gained approval to return to the Tokyo Stock Exchange's First Section next week, more than three years after its demotion to the Second Section following massive losses at its bankrupt U.S. nuclear unit.

The Japanese electronics and infrastructure conglomerate said the Tokyo bourse allowed it to return to the upper division, mainly for large-sized companies, on Jan. 29. The return will make it easier for the company to raise capital for future investments.

In August 2017, Toshiba was demoted after the company's liabilities surpassed its assets in fiscal 2016, due to massive write-downs at its U.S. nuclear power business, and it failed to meet the bourse's listing standards. The company applied for a return to the First Section in April last year.

Toshiba saw its business deteriorate following an accounting scandal in 2015, when the company admitted that it had deliberately overstated profits for nearly seven years.

"We would like to make continuous efforts to improve our governance and compliance to meet the expectations of stakeholders including investors," the company said in a statement Friday.

To turn around its business, Toshiba sold its chip-making unit to a Japan-U.S.-South Korea consortium, led by U.S. private equity fund Bain Capital, for about 2 trillion yen ($19 billion) in 2018 and focused on operations such as social infrastructure building and IT solutions.

==Kyodo

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