[ad_1]
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Commerce Ministry on Friday denied that its officials instructed an adviser to contact Toshiba Corp. shareholders as part of a plan to pressure them to support management on a key issue. vote on board membership.
An explosive shareholder inquiry released Thursday found Toshiba management and the government colluded to rely on foreign investors to align with management’s wishes.
Among its findings, the researchers report said the commerce ministry effectively asked a government adviser, described as M. M, to negotiate with Harvard Universitys endowment fund to change his voting record.
Ministry officials have informed me that it is not true that a request has been made to meet with individual investors, Commerce Secretary Hiroshi Kajiyama told a regular news conference.
He added that the ministry was waiting for Toshibas’ response to the report.
Sources previously told Reuters that Hiromichi Mizuno, a consultant to the Department at the time, had told the Harvard fund it could be subject to regulatory scrutiny if the fund doesn’t follow management’s recommendations at last year’s annual general meeting. follow up.
Mizuno, a Tesla Inc board member and friend of Elon Musk, previously oversaw Japan’s $1.4 trillion government pension fund and is currently the United Nations’ Special Envoy for Innovative Finance and Sustainable Investment.
He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The independent investigation revealed that Toshiba had devised a plan to effectively prevent shareholders from exercising their rights by improperly exerting influence on Effissimo Capital Management, Toshibas’s top shareholder, to withdraw its proposed board candidates.
The report also said the plan was to pressure another fund, 3D Investment Partners, in addition to the Harvard fund to change their vote and that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga verbally encouraged pressure on shareholders when he was chief of cabinet during a meeting with a senior Toshiba executive last year.
Suga, who left Japan yesterday for a meeting of G7 leaders in Britain, has denied that claim.
The report goes against the Japanese Ministry of Finance’s efforts to improve corporate governance and attract foreign investment, and comes as the country tries to polish its international reputation ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics next month.
As one of the industrial conglomerates that modernized Japan and contributed to its economic recovery after World War II, Toshiba has close ties to the government. Its nuclear reactors and defense equipment mean that it is also closely monitored by industry bureaucrats.
However, in 2017, battered by accounting scandals and massive write-downs on its US nuclear reactor operations, Toshiba had to quickly seek a major capital injection from foreign investors.
As a result, activist investors are estimated to account for 25% of Toshibas’ shareholder base.
Shares of Toshibas fell 1.3% in early afternoon trading, while the Nikkei 225 index was flat.
Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Additional reporting by Daiki Iga; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Edwina Gibbs
[ad_2]
picture credit