The Economist (January 25)
Toshiba has threatened “to block the takeover” of Toshiba Machine by Yoshiaki Murakami with a new share issue. This “should alarm anyone who cares about how Japanese firms are run.” Last year, Japanese corporations held cash in excess of ¥446 trillion, “even after they had bought back a record ¥6.5trn in shares the year before.” This “reluctance to part with cash shortchanges investors in Japan by ¥16trn a year.”
Tags: Alarm, Cash, Investors, Japan, Murakami, Share issue, Takeover, Threatened, Toshiba, Toshiba Machine
Financial Times (June 20)
“Six months into its financial crisis, Toshiba is shaping up as the Sistine Chapel of corporate catastrophes: you have to lie on your back to appreciate its scale, and once you get your eye in, the beauty is mesmerising.” Toshiba’s sweeping catastrophe “encapsulates much that investors — both foreign and domestic — have long despaired.” And “for a Japanese government apparently committed to reversing decades of shoddy corporate governance… Toshiba provides the perfect example of why it is pushing for change.”
Tags: Catastrophe, Corporate governance, Despair, Financial Crisis, Government, Investors, Japan, Scale, Shoddy, Sistine Chapel, Toshiba
Financial Times (March 16)
“Some look at surging domestic mergers and a record Y10tn of outbound deals in 2015 and are convinced that the ministry, now known as Meti (the ministry of economy, trade and industry), has indeed recaptured some of its old magic. To them, recent talks to merge the PC units of Fujitsu and Toshiba, and Osaka Steel’s takeover of rival Tokyo Kohtetsu, show the ministry is running Japan Inc once again.”
Tags: Domestic mergers, Fujitsu, Japan Inc., METI, Osaka Steel, Outbound deals, Surging, Tokyo Kohtetsu, Toshiba
Financial Times (July 23)
The Toshiba and Olympus accounting scandals suggest “that Japanese companies are prone to manipulating their accounts. But foreign investors should not give up and go home.” Instead investors have an opportunity to “short shares in companies that will be struck by scandal next, to buy those that will be forced to change their ways, or to do both these things in turn.”
Tags: Accounting, Investors, Japan, Olympus, Opportunity, Scandals, Short, Toshiba
Bloomberg (July 21)
“Japan’s corporate-governance code, introduced only a month ago, raised hopes that the country’s ossified corporate culture might finally crack open. The $1.2 billion accounting scandal at Toshiba…underscores how much further the country has to go.”
Tags: Accounting, Corporate culture, Corporate governance, Hopes, Japan, Scandal, Toshiba
Bloomberg (May 31)
“Recent scandals at Takata (deadly airbags) and Toshiba (dodgy accounting), and Sharp’s ongoing angling for a government rescue when it should be shedding unprofitable businesses, are a reminder of how far Japan still needs to go.” Despite recent governance reforms, “Japan remains 30 years behind its peers in how its companies are run. Corporate Japan still indulges in cross-shareholdings and permits itself male-dominated boards, and the country’s timid media does little to hold it to account.” Still, progress is being made. “Some companies are starting to display the behavior Abe wants, and for which” overseas fund managers have “been agitating.”
Tags: Abe, Accounting, Airbags, ata, Boards, Cross-shareholdings, Fund managers, Governance, Japan, Media, Reforms, Sharp, Toshiba, Unprofitable
