A UK investment fund is urging shareholders of pen tablet maker Wacom Co. to remove two top executives over the Japanese company’s weak performance and unsuccessful management moves. In its shareholder proposals, Asset Value Investors Ltd. said that management actions have weakened the company’s business operations and share price, and said there was “improper use of corporate resources.” AVI, whi...
A UK investment fund is urging shareholders of pen tablet maker Wacom Co. to remove two top executives over the Japanese company’s weak performance and unsuccessful management moves. In its shareholder proposals, Asset Value Investors Ltd. said that management actions have weakened the company’s business operations and share price, and said there was “improper use of corporate resources.” AVI, which is Wacom’s biggest shareholder with a 13.8% stake, is calling on President Nobutaka Ide and Chief Operating Officer Takafumi Nakajima to leave the board, and recommended a candidate for an independent director. That’s the second year in a row that the London-based firm submitted proposals to Wacom management. All five of its proposals last year were voted down. Wacom said in a statement in response to AVI that the proposals contain “factual errors and speculation” and management is opposed to them. Proposals by activists in Japan will be closely watched by investors to see if the challenges to management will be accepted by shareholders. Institutional investors and activists have already submitted proposals to 33 companies this year more than a month before the peak of general shareholder meetings in late-June, approaching the all-time high 51 companies last year, according to Bloomberg and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Ltd. data. Wacom’s brand business, which includes pen tablets, returned to an operating profit in the fiscal year ended March 31 after losing money for three straight years as competition from inexpensive overseas products intensified. The company reduced workforce by about 15% to 20% in the year to March 2025. Despite restructuring steps like those, Wacom’s share price is low because of Ide’s mismanagement of the company, AVI said. The fair value of the stock is ¥1,300, the UK firm said. That’s a level it only breached one year in 2013 — it’s trading at ¥762 on Friday. Foreign Investors Fear Retreat in Japan’s Governance Reforms UK Fund AVI Wants Chairman o...
Japan’s corporate goods prices surged in April by the most in 12 years, in another sign of how the war in Iran is boosting inflationary pressures and supporting the case for the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates. The measure of input prices for Japanese firms rose 2.3% from a month earlier and March’s increase was revised higher, the Bank of Japan reported Friday. That was a full point above t...
Japan’s corporate goods prices surged in April by the most in 12 years, in another sign of how the war in Iran is boosting inflationary pressures and supporting the case for the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates. The measure of input prices for Japanese firms rose 2.3% from a month earlier and March’s increase was revised higher, the Bank of Japan reported Friday. That was a full point above the highest estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists and marked the biggest jump since April 2014, when the sales tax was raised for the first time in nearly two decades. Outside of that instance, it was the largest increase since 1980. The gain was led by higher prices of oil and naphtha — a key petroleum product used to make plastics and rubbers — according to the bank. From a year earlier , producer prices advanced 4.9%, the biggest increase in three years and also exceeding all projections. The data reinforce growing market expectations for the BOJ to resume raising interest rates at their next meeting in June. Policymakers left rates unchanged last month in a split decision and warned of upside risks to their inflation estimates from the war in Iran. “The latest data show that prices are surging mainly for petroleum products and chemical products, and concerns about supply shortages are spreading for some goods,” Takeshi Minami , chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute, said in note. “The likelihood of a rate hike at the June meeting is rising gradually.” One of the officials who supported the BOJ’s April decision said on Thursday that the central bank should hike as soon as possible, assuming there is no indication of the economy running into trouble. Read More: BOJ’s Masu Says Rate Hike Desirable at ‘Earliest Stage Possible’ April marks the start of the fiscal year in Japan, and is therefore a key time for businesses to change their prices. Friday’s data suggest businesses may be starting to pass along higher prices to their customers after long resistin...