Former banker becomes Toshiba CEO
February 20, 2018
Nobuaki Kurumatani (Credit: Handelsblatt)
In the latest news from the OEM, Toshiba has revealed that ex-banker, Nobuaki Kurumatani, will be taking the helm from 1 April 2018.
As Reuters reports, Toshiba Corp has appointed former banker, Kurumatani, who is “experienced in dealing with distressed companies”, to be the OEM’s new CEO. Toshiba has also predicted its first annual profit in four years, due to the well-documented sale of its chip business.
As part of his new role, Kurumatani will have to oversee the completion of the multimillion dollar sale “to a Bain-led consortium”. The sale “is aimed at putting the conglomerate back on a firmer footing after a year of crisis stemming from huge losses at its U.S. nuclear unit”, with Kurumatani declaring that his primary goal is to boost Toshiba’s finances.
“Firstly, the issue is capital, to help capital recover quickly and return to global competition,” he stated during a recent press conference.
Kurumatani, 60, is currently captaining the Japanese subsidiary of private equity firm, CVC Capital Partners, and prior to this role was executive at Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, which was “one of Toshiba’s main lenders.”
According to a Reuters financial source, he has been appointed as CEO “to deal with the activist shareholders” as “there is no one at Toshiba with the experience to tackle this”.
Toshiba’s current CEO, Satoshi Tsunakawa, will transition to Chief Operating Officer “and be in charge of day-to-day operations”.
The appointment of Kurumatani comes after a notoriously tumultuous year for Toshiba, but events seem to be taking a positive turn for the corporation as it forecasts a “record net profit” of ¥520 billion ($4.8 billion/€3.9 billion) for the financial year, which will conclude next month.
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