With the clock ticking, stricken Toshiba Corp. failed to reach a final decision Thursday regarding a buyer for its flash memory business.

After a board meeting the same day — believed to be the deadline sought by Toshiba's main creditor banks — the firm, whose debts exceeded assets by ¥552.9 billion at the end of March, was widely expected to announce it would sell chip-making spin-off Toshiba Memory Corp. to a consortium led by U.S.-based data storage maker Western Digital, for about ¥1.9 trillion.

Instead, amid discussions with other potential buyers, the company released a statement saying "the negotiation with each consortium has not reached the point which will allow Toshiba's Board of Directors could (sic) make a decision", and that no "decision to reduce the pool of candidate purchasers of TMC" has been made.