- Shareholders approved all ten proposed directors at the annual meeting in Toyota City.
- Toyota on Tuesday unveiled a full range of battery-electric vehicles with “next-generation” batteries from 2026.
- Japanese companies are under increasing pressure to engage their shareholders more in order to improve capital efficiency and overall profitability.
People come to an annual Toyota Motor shareholders’ meeting in Toyota city, Aichi Prefecture, June 14, 2023. Toyota is under pressure from major institutional investors for Chairman Akio Toyoda to resign over his lukewarm endorsement of electric vehicles.
Str | Afp | Getty Images
Toyota shares hit a 16-month high on Wednesday after shareholders voted to keep Akio Toyoda as CEO, showing broad endorsement by the board and the company’s renewed strategy.
Shareholders also rejected proposals to call for broader disclosure of the Japanese automaker’s climate lobbying work and voted in favor of all ten proposed board members at the company’s annual meeting in Toyota City.
Toyota shares were up about 4.3% as of 1pm local time to 2,276 Japanese yen per share – the highest since February 2022. They also outperformed the Topix and Nikkei benchmarks in Tokyo, each up around 1% on Wednesday afternoon.
A small number of institutional investors have opposed the re-appointment of Toyoda – a grandson of Toyota Motors’ founder – on the grounds that the company’s strategy of focusing on multiple fronts in hybrid, gasoline and electric vehicles harms its competitiveness have harmed.
The unprecedented challenges facing Toyota shareholders this year come as Japanese companies come under increasing pressure to better engage their shareholders in improving capital efficiency and overall profitability.
Ahead of the meeting, the world’s largest automaker announced on Tuesday that it will introduce a full range of battery electric vehicles with “next-generation” batteries from 2026. These will be designed and manufactured by a new EV unit called the BEV Factory that was founded in May.
Toyota aims to sell 1.5 million all-electric vehicles per year by 2026 and 3.5 million all-electric vehicles per year by 2030.