 Hoya Corp.’s Chief Executive Officer Hiroshi Suzuki may reveal the salaries of executives after a shareholder proposal from his 32-year-old cousin for full disclosure won backing from a minority of investors.
Hoya, Japan’s biggest maker of optical glass, is considering the call by Yutaka Yamanaka for more transparency on pay along with other stockholder propositions that garnered more than 40 percent of votes at the general meeting in June, Hoya’s spokesman Naoji Ito said by telephone Aug. 27.
Yamanaka’s 15-point package of recommendations for corporate governance is gaining traction at Hoya, bucking a national trend of waning shareholder activism. Japanese companies facing such proposals fell to 19 last year, from a peak of 23 in 2007, as the global financial crisis increased divestment, according to proxy adviser Glass, Lewis & Co.
“Shareholders and investors would welcome an increase in transparency and a more active stance on disclosure,” said Masato Shirai, a director in charge of personnel change management at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Tokyo. Hoya would be the first listed Japanese company to fully disclose executive pay, Shirai said.
Hoya gained 1.2 percent to close at 1,904 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, compared with a 1.8 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average. The company’s shares have fallen 23 percent this year, compared with a 13 percent drop in the benchmark. 
Disclosure Rules
Starting this year, publicly traded companies in Japan must provide the names of executives earning at least 100 million yen ($1.17 million) and a breakdown of their compensation packages, including stock options, bonuses and retirement payouts.
Suzuki received 153 million yen in compensation for the year ended March 31, Tokyo-based Hoya said on June 18. The glassmaker and all listed Japanese companies are also required from this year to disclose the tally of votes for each shareholder proposal.
Yamanaka’s proposals, which include limits on concurrent board membership and an end to cumulative voting, won backing from Glass, Lewis, while failing to attract the two-thirds majority needed to pass at Hoya’s annual shareholder meeting this year.
Overseas shareholders including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Capital Research & Management Co. and Deutsche Bank AG, owned 54 percent of Hoya’s outstanding shares as of March 2009, according to the company’s data. Yamanaka, whose grandfather Shigeru Yamanaka co-founded Hoya in 1941, said he owns less than 1 percent. Hoya board members’ average age is 61, according to Bloomberg data. |
