Toshiba director defends board nominees from hedge fund shareholders

The Toshiba Corp. facility in Kawasaki, Japan. REUTERS/Issei Kato

TOKYO, June 7 (Reuters) – A Toshiba Corp (6502.T) exterior director on Tuesday rejected criticism that having two shareholder representatives would skew the board, as boardroom tensions on the troubled conglomerate erupted right into a public row over a slate of director candidates.

“I disagree that the board is skewed,” Jerry Black, an exterior director on Toshiba’s five-member nomination committee, instructed Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

Black’s remark was in reference to objection by one other nomination committee member, Mariko Watahiki, to 2 board director candidates from hedge fund shareholders Elliott Administration and Farallon Capital Administration. learn extra

Watahiki, a former excessive courtroom choose, has mentioned the slate lacks variety, equity and stability on the board.

“In terms of the 2 administrators, I believe that they will be nice contributors to the board,” Black mentioned.

“They have been evaluated based mostly upon the person capabilities. Each of these corporations have spent 1000’s and 1000’s of hours on researching Toshiba.”

In the identical interview, CEO Taro Shimada declined to touch upon the nominees saying he’s “not ready to guage the nomination committee’s selections”.

However he mentioned that the execution of an excellent marketing strategy “can solely remedy the issue”.

Individually on Tuesday, Toshiba issued an announcement reiterating its assist for the slate of all 13 board director candidates.

“Watahiki’s opinions symbolize her private view and don’t have an effect on the corporate’s place of assist” for the 2 candidates, Toshiba board chair Satoshi Tsunakawa mentioned in an announcement.

Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki and Yuki Nitta

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