Yoichiro Okazaki, the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries executive appointed to be the new chief executive of the ailing Mitsubishi Motors, said Friday that he would be leading the company at the most difficult time in its history.
Okazaki, 61, who has no previous experience in the auto business, succeeds Rolf Eckrodt, the DaimlerChrysler-appointed executive who resigned Monday after the unexpected decision by the German automaker, Mitsubishi's biggest shareholder, to stop supporting its Japanese partner.
"We are facing troubles unlike any we have experienced since the company was founded and ones that threaten our existence," said Okazaki, who will also become president and chairman of the company.
Okazaki said his first priority would be to improve communications within the company and to encourage employees to report problems. Huge losses on defaulted car loans in the US last year and a scandal over a recall in Japan four years ago were both results of long-festering problems within Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi Motors expects to report a loss of ?72 billion (US$656 million) for the fiscal year ended March 31.
Since Daimler's pullout, the members of the Mitsubishi group of companies, including the trading company Mitsubishi Corp and the Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group, have taken the lead in devising a turnaround plan for Mitsubishi and are expected to make the biggest financial contribution to a bailout.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the industrial equipment maker where Okazaki most recently served as a managing director, is Mitsubishi Motors' second-largest shareholder, with a 15 percent stake.
Okazaki, who spent four years as head of the forklift-manufacturer Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift America, said he had assembled a team of about 40 managers to work on the turnaround plan, including people from Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial and other companies in the Mitsubishi group.
He said it was too early to say how the plan would be financed or whether it would include plant closings and layoffs, as is widely expected. Mitsubishi Motors denied a Japanese newspaper report that it was seeking assistance from Japan's top automaker, the Toyota Motor Corp.
Even before Eckrodt's resignation, Okazaki had been nominated to help lead a turnaround, so his appointment as chief executive did not come as a surprise.
Okazaki's nomination was approved by shareholders at a meeting in Tokyo on Friday where Mitsubishi executives faced angry questions about the company's sagging fortunes.
"DaimlerChrysler's decision at the very final phase was a big surprise for our company," said Keiichiro Hashimoto, chief financial officer of Mitsubishi Motors and the company's acting president since Eckrodt resigned on Monday.
"I can only tell you that the decision was made based on DaimlerChrysler's own circumstances," he said, according to Kyodo News.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”