The Toshiba director has resigned warning of greater instability in the company

Toshiba shareholders have extended “instability and uncertainty” confused conglomerate with them shock vote to remove the chairman of the company’s board, the director saw that he had no choice but to resign after the investor uprising last Friday.

In an exclusive statement to the Financial Times following his sudden resignation on Friday, George Olcott expressed doubts about the vote to throw Osamu Nagayama – He described the man as one of the few leading Japanese companies capable of overseeing a turn on the scale now required by Toshiba.

“The removal of the chair serves to prolong instability and uncertainty, as well as the removal of a great CEO. I cannot understand that this development is having a good outcome for the company or its stakeholders,” Olcott, a former investment banker at SG Warburg, told the boards of several Japanese companies.

His remarks were made last Friday after Toshiba’s annual general meeting (AGM) – for shareholders operating in Japan after months of deep turmoil and unprecedented victories during the company’s months.

As a result of the removal of Nagayama from shareholders in the AGA, some investors demanded the removal of the entire committee, many of them due to repeated bankruptcies of the leadership of a company that is rich in valuable technology and growth potential.

“I think it was ambitious for Mr. Nagayama to organize a new course for Toshiba to improve its corporate value, but it was feasible and I hoped to help him and his management in that effort,” Olcott said.

Others, however, strongly denied Olcott’s warning about Toshiban’s instability, and instead removed the main lightning bolts of shareholder mistrust of Toshiba’s management over the past two weeks.

Raymond Zage, Toshiba’s non-executive director, said the immediate moment of last Friday’s AGM put the committee in a state of unity and clarity on issues that needed attention.

“The main reason for Toshiban’s instability is the loss of confidence in our shareholders, and independent research confirmed that this loss of confidence was guaranteed. We are fully focused on the need to restore that confidence and the importance of providing stability and security to our employees and customers,” Zage told FT.

The removal of Nagayama on Friday has forced the company’s interim CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa to appoint a new management team that includes at least four new board members until Toshiba convenes an extraordinary general meeting.

AGM released it this month independent explosive report At the Toshiba 2020 annual meeting events. The report involved a collaboration between the company and the Japanese government to remove shareholder activists.

In the days leading up to last Friday’s General Assembly, growing institutional shareholders told the FT that they could not justify Nagayama’s re-appointment vote.

While Nagayama took over as chairman of the board and nomination committee after the 2020 General Assembly, they argued that he should be responsible for the management of Toshiba’s investigation, as they concluded that there was no problem.

But other people have also come into the debate in his defense, including John Roos, Barack Obama’s former ambassador to Tokyo, and has released a statement praising Nagayama before the AGA as “the driving force behind positive change, not the status quo sponsor.” ”