Toyo names new leadership team

Osaka, Japan – Toyo Tire & Rubber Co.’s board of directors, at a meeting on 29 Sept, nominated candidates to replace its outgoing chairman and president.

The Japanese rubber and tire maker has introduced Katsumi Komaguchi as the newly appointed chairman and director and Takashi Shimizu as the president and representative director.

The appointments are subject to approval at the company’s EGM scheduled for 12 Nov.

Komaguchi will join the company mid-October as advisor and following approval will become the chairman of the board. Until 19 Sept, he was deputy chairman of Kyocera Document Solutions.

Shimzu, is currently a senior corporate officer with responsibilities covering tire planning division, tire business group, North America business unit among others.

In addition to the top two nominations, Toyo’s board has introduced the following for approval at the November meeting:

Kiochi Ono, currently senior corporate officer in charge of tire R&D, to become director.

Masaji Ishino, currently senior corporate officer in charge of DriverTech business, to become director.

Tetsuo Tatara, currently corporate officer for production engineering, to become director.

Ken Morita will become an outside director, joining the company from Panasonic.

Former director Sadao Ichihara will now serve as senior corporate officer for seismic isolation rubber division, while outgoing president will start as special advisor for both tire business and seismic isolation rubber division as of November.

The reshuffle, which had been previously announced, is taking place in the wake of a seismic rubber scandal at the Japanese rubber manufacturer.

The firm said in April and March that at least 145 buildings have non-compliant earthquake-proof rubber shock absorbers supplied by Toyo since 1996. Initially the firm said it supplied sub-standard products from July 2004 through February 2015.

The products were certified for quality by Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure Transport and Tourism, but since were found not to have conformed to performance standards.

In its 2015 first quarter financials, Toyo said it took a €100 million provision to cover estimated costs related to the earthquake scandal. This caused the firm to suffer a net loss of €23 million for the quarter.