Boardroom fight between father and daughter at Japanese furniture retailer

Katsuhisa Otsuka, the 71-year-old founder and chairman of Japanese furniture retailer Otsuka Kagu Ltd. is engaged in a boardroom fight with his eldest daughter, Kumiko Otsuka, 47, the company's president, according to

a

Wall Street Journal

report.

In July, Katsuhisa Otsuka fired his daughter, who had been president for five years. During her tenure, she changed the company's strategy from the patriarch's focus on high-end customers; as a result, it returned to profitability in 2011 for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, the article said.

Without Kumiko Otsuka at the helm, Otsuka Kagu posted its first lost in nearly four years for the quarter that ended in September. The company's board reappointed her in January. At a shareholder meeting on March 27, a proxy vote will decide whether the father or the daughter should be ousted, the


Journal


article said.

The report noted that a proxy vote is “a rare move in Japan, where shareholders tend to be left out of crucial business decisions.”

Katsuhisa Otsuka is the largest shareholder, with an 18% stake in the company; his daughter owns an asset-management firm that has a stake of about 10%, the article said.

In addition to posting losses during the financial crisis, the company was fined 30 million yen in 2007 for insider trading of its own shares before a dividend announcement, the


Journal


report said. After taking charge in March 2009, Kumiko Otsuka reduced prices, renovated stores and opened a line of lower-priced stores. Her father “took her moves as a rejection of his policy” and closed the lower-priced stores after reappointing himself president in July, the article said.

“The family feud has captivated the country,” the


Journal


article said. (Source:


Wall Street Journal


, March 19, 2015.)