Our ratings on Japan's Toshiba Corp. (BBB/Stable/A-2) reflect its stable profits and cash flow from power generation, other industrial systems, and medical equipment as well as strong competitiveness in NAND flash memory, backed by technological strengths and enhanced production. Standard&Poor's Ratings Services also factors into the ratings stable access to capital markets and bank support. Constraints on the ratings are the core semiconductor business' high susceptibility to market fluctuations and its highly variable profits, the company's consistent need for heavy capital investments, its heavy financial burden of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and its relatively weak measures of cash flow protection and weak debt-to-capital structure for the current ratings. The company has a "satisfactory" business risk profile and "intermediate"
