Yutaka Yamanaka, a grandson of the Japanese lens maker’s founder, Shigeru Yamanaka, calls for a more diverse, transparent board to help prevent “failures” such as the $1 billion purchase of PENTAX Corp.
Yamanaka, 33, owns less than 1 percent of Hoya’s outstanding shares, with 51 percent owned by overseas shareholders such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Capital Research & Management Co. and Deutsche Bank AG. On May 11, Yamanaka submitted a 15-point shareholder proposal (unheard of at a Japanese company) which includes calls for disclosure of individual directors’ pay, limits on concurrent board membership, and an end to cumulative voting (which lets shareholders withhold votes from some nominees in order to cast multiple votes for others). He claimes that Hoya’s 2007 acquisition of camera and endoscope maker Pentax to expand its medical care business was “overpriced.”
Read the whole article at: Bloomberg.
