BSS/AFP, Tokyo
Toshiba shareholders voted to oust the board's chairman on Friday, in the latest twist for the company after scandals and losses, and a rare victory for activist investors in corporate Japan.
CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa said shareholders had voted down a bid to reappoint Osamu Nagayama and a member of the firm's audit committee, a result that surprised some observers in Japan's often-staid corporate environment.
It came despite Tsunakawa offering his backing for the chairman of the board, and pledging to work on re-establishing trust after the damaging revelations of an independent probe.
In a statement announcing the results, Toshiba said only that it "recognises the seriousness of the rejection of some candidates for directors."
Earlier this month, an inquiry found that the troubled industrial conglomerate "devised a plan to effectively prevent shareholders from exercising their shareholder proposal rights and voting rights" at a meeting in July 2020.
The meeting, at which the activist shareholders' resolutions were rejected, was "not fairly managed", the 140-page report concluded.
It also detailed how Toshiba had pursued an intervention from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to help sway the vote.
The probe was only launched after pressure from shareholders.
Toshiba apologised after the report and said it would remove two directors, but declined to address the allegations it attempted to collude with the government on votes.
The firm has been through months of turmoil, which only deepened after an unexpected buyout offer in April from a private equity fund associated with then-CEO Nobuaki Kurumatani.
The offer sparked uproar, and reports of other possible buyout interest. Kurumatani resigned in April though he insisted it was not related to the fallout.
Toshiba was once a symbol of Japan's advanced technology and economic power. It has lurched from scandals and losses to a recovery in recent years.
