Raw Japan
Slices of Japanese business, politics and life
Tigers, hungry bears at shareholder meetings
The annual shareholders meeting season is in full swing in Japan, and some executives have been dodging fastballs from disgruntled investors.
Quite a few managers are stepping up to the podium with a heavy feeling this year, as irate shareholders offer feelings about dividend cuts and plunging share prices.
The outgoing president of Toyota Motor was one top guy apologising; Japan’s No. 1 automaker expects a second straight year of record, multi-billion dollar losses this financial year.
Executives at Hankyu Hanshin Holdings were also forced to apologise at a meeting last week, but not for the Osaka-based railway’s own performance.
Colonel Sanders returns
After nearly a quarter century on the bottom of a Japanese river, Colonel Sanders has come up smiling.
Ecstatic fans of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team in 1985 tossed a statue of the Kentucky Fried Chicken founder into the Dotonbori River in Osaka, western Japan, when the perpetual underdogs won their first Central League pennant in 21 years.
