People arrive for the Toyota Motor Annual Shareholders’ Meeting in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, on June 14, 2023. Toyota is under pressure from large institutional investors to resign Chairman Akio Toyoda over his lukewarm approach to electric vehicles.
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toyota Shares hit a 16-month high on Wednesday after shareholders voted to keep Akio Toyoda as chairman, a broad endorsement of the company’s board and an updated strategy.
Shareholders also rejected a proposal seeking more disclosure about the Japanese automaker’s climate lobbying activities, while also voting in favor of all 10 proposed board members at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Toyota City.
Toyota shares were up about 4.3% at 2,276 yen at 1 p.m. local time, the highest level since February 2022. They also outperformed Tokyo’s Topix and the Nikkei , which were both up about 1 percent on Wednesday afternoon.
A small number of institutional investors have opposed the reappointment of Akio Toyoda, the grandson of Toyota Motor Corp.’s founder, arguing that the company’s strategy of focusing on multiple segments of hybrid, gasoline and electric vehicles has hurt their competitiveness.
The unprecedented challenges faced by Toyota shareholders this year come as pressure mounts on Japanese companies to better engage shareholders in improving capital efficiency and overall profitability.
Ahead of the meeting, the world’s largest automaker said on Tuesday it would roll out a full range of all-electric vehicles with “next-generation” batteries starting in 2026. The cars will be developed and manufactured by a new electric vehicle division called the BEV factory, which opened in May 2018.
Toyota aims to achieve annual sales of 1.5 million pure electric vehicles by 2026 and 3.5 million pure electric vehicles by 2030.