Sharp Faces Crisis as Mechanical Pencil Inventor Turns 100: Tech

The 100-year-old inventor of mechanical pencils needs to pen a new plan to make it to 101.

Sharp Corp., Japan’s biggest liquid-crystal display maker, put up its Osaka headquarters and some plants as collateral last week to win bank loans after its credit ratings were cut to junk. The supplier to Apple Inc. is also renegotiating a stock sale to Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group as it tries to recover from record losses and a 70 percent slump in shares this year.