If this pace continues, I won’t be able to be a director next year
TOKYO — Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda expressed concerns that he might not be reelected as a director if shareholder support continues to decline at the current rate, according to an interview published on Monday.
Shareholder support for Toyoda dropped to 72% at the company’s annual general meeting last month, following recommendations from proxy advisers to vote against his reelection. This is a decrease from the 85% support he received in 2023.
Last month’s results marked the lowest support rating ever for a director in Toyota’s history, noted Toyoda, the 68-year-old grandson of the company’s founder, in an interview with the automaker’s news outlet.
“If this pace continues, I won’t be able to be a director next year,” Toyoda said.
His support rating among foreign institutional investors was particularly weak at 34%. Before the meeting, proxy advisers Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis criticized Toyota’s handling of certification testing violations.
Support from domestic institutional investors was around 55%, down from 70% or more the previous year. Toyoda noted that this indicated that half of them were asking him to step down because of his behavior over the past year.
The weaker support among institutional investors contrasted sharply with a nearly 99% approval rating among retail investors.
