OREANDA-NEWS. March 29, 2011. Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) today announced that it has acquired a 67% equity stake in Ansaldo Trasmissione & Distribuzione S.p.A (Ansaldo T&D), an Italian company engaged in engineering transmission & distribution (T&D) and electric power and industrial photovoltaic (PV) power generation plant engineering. This move marks Toshiba's fully fledged entry into the European and North African T&D and PV markets.

Ansaldo T&D is an engineering company that started operation in 1984 as a unit of Ansaldo Group (now Finmeccanica Group), the Italian heavy industrial group established in 1853. Since becoming independent from Finmeccanica Group in 2007, Ansaldo T&D has achieved an impressive track record in T&D projects and PV plant engineering, centering on Europe and North Africa.

The European and African T&D market accounts for nearly 20% of the global market (1). The European and African T&D market is the second largest market after China and steady growth in demand is expected. The European PV market accounts for nearly 80% of the global market and is expected to remain the world's largest. Furthermore, new markets, such as those for smart grid business, are expected to expand from now on.

Toshiba intends to increase the scale of its T&D and PV businesses by taking them to the global level.