People arrive at Toyota Motor Co.’s annual shareholder meeting in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture on June 14, 2023. Toyota is under pressure from major institutional investors for chairman Akio Toyoda to step down over his lukewarm embrace of electric vehicles.
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Toyota shares are rising
Toyota shares closed up 6.3% at 2,310 Japanese yen ($16.48) per share on massive volume – their highest close since Feb. 9, 2022. Their record closing high of 2,390 Japanese yen per share was recorded on Jan. 9 2022. On Wednesday, Toyota shares surpassed the gain of 1.5%. Nikkei and a 1.3% rise in Tokyo’s Topix benchmarks. Wednesday’s rally contributed to the sizeable gains seen on Tuesday.
A small number of overseas institutional investors campaigned against the reappointment of Toyoda – the grandson of the founder of Toyota Motors – as chairman, challenging the independence of the company’s board, given that he was Toyota’s CEO until April 1 this year. .
Some investors have also criticized the company’s strategy to focus on multiple fronts across hybrid, gasoline and electric vehicles as hurting its competitiveness. Toyota says this helps meet the diverse needs of customers in different regions, which it expects will continue to diverge in the future – pledging to “accelerate localization” in plans it unveiled on Tuesday.