Latest Tokyo Brief coverage on NIDEC CORPORATION, tracking filings, financial news, and market signals from Japan.
TSE:6594
Oasis Management has lifted its Nidec stake to 7.97% and told regulators it wants new directors appointed, the manufacturer delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange and its capital policy reworked, while reserving the right to buy more than five additional percentage points of stock within roughly three months.
Shareholders on Nidec's register as of September 30 will get a say on the financial statements and audit reports frozen since June by an internal accounting scandal, though the extraordinary meeting's date and agenda are still unset.
A single Nidec shareholder is suing two former directors for ¥28.73bn, alleging share buybacks in 2022-23 and a December 2022 interim dividend exceeded the company's legal distribution limit; Nidec says the claim targets the directors personally and will not affect its earnings.
Investigators counted 844 confirmed quality-misconduct cases at Nidec, most of them manufacturing changes made without the required customer notification or approval, and blamed unrealistic profit targets and the founder's centralized management, with cases concentrated in three business units.
Nidec confirmed it has received an outside committee's report on parts, process and design changes made without customer approval, but the findings, and any sense of scale, wait until Friday's redacted release.
Nidec shareholders filed a formal demand on August 20 for the company to sue current and former directors over accounting misconduct, adding pressure on a liability investigation the company opened back in March that has yet to report its findings.
A forensic probe found no log evidence that hackers pulled data from Nidec's Taiwan subsidiary, but a dark-web list of folder and file names means Nidec still can't rule out a leak, even as the unit's production and shipping continue as normal.