|
AVI Japan Opportunity Trust PLC on Thursday called for two directors of its investee Wacom Corp to be dismissed. London-based Asset Value Investors Ltd manages AVI Japan Opportunity Trust or AJOT, which invests in Japanese equities, as well as managing AVI Global Trust PLC. On behalf of the portfolios it manages, AVI is Wacom’s largest shareholder. Wacom is a Saitama, Japan-based company which produces graphic tablets and accessories. AVI has submitted proposals calling for the dismissal of Wacom’s representative director and chief executive Nobutaka Ide, as well as internal director and chief operating officer Takafumi Nakajima. Additionally, AVI is calling for a new external director to be appointed. AVI raised concerns over the performance of Wacom’s Branded Business, which swung to a loss of JP¥4.0 billion, roughly $25.3 million, in financial 2023, from a profit of JP¥8.7 billion the year prior. It had remained loss-making until the company’s most recent annual results, for the year ended March 31, in which Wacom reported that the Branded division had swung to profit of JP¥2.02 billion from the previous year’s loss of JP¥2.88 billion. Additionally, AVI disapproves of what it sees as Wacom’s ‘inappropriate acquisition of a company represented by one of Wacom’s own outside directors, despite the absence of tangible business synergies with Wacom, as well as the improper use of corporate resources, including the provision of preferential treatment to the children of the company representative director, Ide’. Wacom has pushed back against these claims. AVI last year launched a public campaign calling for improvements. On Thursday, it published further material and proposed leadership changes, ahead of Wacom’s annual general meeting in June. Kaz Sakai, head of Japan Research at AVI, criticised Wacom for what he called ‘serious deficiencies in governance oversight’. ‘These include the acquisition by Wacom of a loss-making company represented by Nakajima, one of its own external directors, for more than ten million dollars, the subsequent transfer of Nakajima into an internal director role, and conduct by Ide, Wacom’s representative director and CEO, that can only reasonably be viewed as a conflation of personal and corporate interests, together with a board that has tolerated such behaviour.’ To address what AVI considers to be oversight failures, the investment manager has nominated Yoichi Suhama as an external director, whom it considers ‘capable of strengthening governance and management’. Sakai added: ‘We are confident that, through the board structure recommended by AVI and the implementation of operational improvement measures, Wacom can further reinforce its position as the global market leader in the graphic tablet business.’ Wacom’s board on Thursday released a statement opposing AVI’s changes. It argued that ‘there is insufficient reasonable necessity to select [Suhama] as a candidate for director’, and that his experience did not offer a significant advantage to the two candidates which Wacom itself has proposed as external directors. Wacom also asserted that Suhama ‘is under the influence’ of AVI, having been recommended previously for roles at other companies. In response to AVI’s calls to dismiss Ide and Nakajima, Wacom said: ‘The board of directors and the nominating committee confirmed and verified the facts concerning the matters pointed out in the shareholder proposal, and... found no reason to dismiss either director.’ Wacom dismissed AVI’s case against Ide and Nakajima as ‘speculation not based on facts’, and insisted that Wacom ‘has already secured a path to sales growth’. It also argued that the acquisition with which AVI has taken issue, of RE-X Expansion Inc, was justified by RE-X’s ‘development know-how’. Wacom added: ‘Activities by President Ide’s family are not unfair in any respect in relation to the company.’ AJOT shares fell 0.5% to 172.15 pence on Thursday afternoon in London. Copyright 2026 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
|
