Japan’s national pension fund, the world’s biggest, yesterday said it is suing Toshiba Corp over a profit-padding scandal that slashed the value of its stock as its new boss pledged to overhaul the vast conglomerate.
The Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund wants more than US$9 million in damages to cover losses linked to some of its investment in Toshiba, and that figure might grow, the fund said.
“For now, the demand only covers [certain] Toshiba shares” purchased by the fund, a spokesman told reporters. “It will take more time to calculate all the damage from the scandal.”
“We have a responsibility to recover losses [linked to the misconduct], as the fund manages public money,” he said.
Best known for televisions and electronics, Toshiba’s vast business was dented by the 2008 global financial crisis, while the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster squashed demand for atomic power at home in a big blow to the firm’s key nuclear division.
Top executives complained of “shameful results” that could not be made public and a company-hired panel last year found they masterminded a years-long scheme to hide poor results.
Toshiba shares lost about 40 percent of their value in the wake of the scandal, which sparked the resignation of its president and a string of other top executives last year.
Toshiba president Satoshi Tsunakawa yesterday declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying he was focused on a major reboot of the firm and “winning back investors’ trust.”
“We are not even at the halfway point yet,” he told a group of foreign media in Tokyo, referring to Toshiba’s turnaround. “We are still at the mountain’s foothills.”
The company has been shedding businesses and announced earlier this year it sold its medical devices unit to camera and office equipment maker Canon Corp.
China’s Midea Group Co (美的集團) agreed to buy a little more than 80 percent of Toshiba’s money-losing home appliances arm.
Japan’s pension fund, equivalent to a quarter of the entire economy, towers over its nearest competitor — Norway’s US$700 billion pension plan.
The fund has sued scandal-hit Japanese firms in the past to recoup share losses and is involved in a lawsuit against Germany’s Volkswagen AG over its massive emissions cheating scandal.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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