📉 On October 1, Nidec, one of the world's biggest makers of electric motors, explained what lay behind a ¥632.1 billion impairment loss. Among the internal causes, the company's slides named its "conventional management approach," with expansion in every direction and a focus on short-term results. It was the first press conference for Michio Kaida, 70, who had become president two days earlier. It has been 8 years since founder Shigenobu Nagamori gave up the president's job, and none of the 4 presidents who followed him stayed for 3 years.

Four days from September 28

On the morning of September 28, Diamond Online, a Japanese business magazine, reported that Nidec's board had decided to remove President Mitsuya Kishida, 66, and that the company planned a writedown of roughly ¥1 trillion (about $6.4 billion at ¥157.2 to the dollar as of September 28, the rate used throughout). Nidec said the same day that it was true changes in executives and a large impairment were being discussed, but that "none of them has been decided by the Company at this moment." The shares fell 17% from the previous close to ¥2,340, the lowest price allowed for the day under the Tokyo exchange's daily limit rules.

On September 29, the company announced that Kishida had resigned. It was a resignation, not the dismissal that had been reported. While correcting its accounts, Nidec said, it looked again at how officers and employees had behaved under the former management, and found that on some occasions Kishida had "made statements or engaged in conduct in relation to financial reporting that could not necessarily be regarded as appropriate." Kaida, a first senior vice president and the chief technology officer, took over.

The results for the year to March 2026, released on September 30, put the impairment loss at ¥632.1 billion (about $4 billion). That is short of the reported ¥1 trillion, but about 2.5 times the ¥250 billion (about $1.6 billion) scale that had been expected until then. The net loss came to ¥564.6 billion (about $3.6 billion). An impairment is what a company records when a factory, a business or an acquired firm turns out to be worth less than the value on its books.

At the October 1 press conference, Kaida said his mission was to rebuild the company and make it trusted again, according to the Kyoto Shimbun. The same day, Nidec announced the sale of its electronic components subsidiary, Nidec Components, to the U.S. investment firm Carlyle for ¥103 billion (about $655 million).

The "conventional management approach"

The October 1 slides split the causes of the writedown into internal and external ones. Under internal causes, labeled the "conventional management approach," they listed 3 items: a drive to expand the motor business in every direction, uniform performance management that held every business to the same targets, and a short-term focus that put revenue ahead of asset efficiency. The external causes included a slowdown in EV adoption and price pressure on parts in automotive, and a shrinking market and tougher competition in home appliances after the pandemic boom.

By business, the largest writedowns were ¥298.8 billion (about $1.9 billion) at the appliance, commercial and industrial motor unit, ¥116.2 billion (about $740 million) at Nidec-PSA emotors, a joint venture making traction motors for electrified vehicles, and ¥73.1 billion (about $465 million) at Nidec Mobility. Nidec-PSA emotors was set up in 2018 under an agreement between Nagamori and the head of France's Groupe PSA, now part of Stellantis.

For the future, the slides promised selection and concentration across the business portfolio, management by ROIC (return on invested capital), and a quick repair of the balance sheet. Nidec Components, the unit being sold, is a company Nidec first invested in in 1998 and made a wholly owned subsidiary in 2014.

From 4 employees to a global giant

Nidec began life as Nihon Densan, founded by Nagamori in Kyoto in 1973 with just 4 employees. It started with small precision motors and in 1979 began producing spindle motors for hard disk drives, the part that spins the disk. Then came a long run of acquisitions that took it into home appliances, industrial machinery and cars. In 2010 it bought Emerson Electric's motor business. The company renamed itself Nidec in 2023.

Bloomberg has called it the world's biggest manufacturer of electric motors. Nagamori led that climb from the front, serving as president for 45 years.

No successor has lasted 3 years

Nagamori handed over the president's title for the first time in June 2018. His pick was Hiroyuki Yoshimoto, who had come to Nidec after stints at Nissan and elsewhere. Results stalled. In April 2020 Yoshimoto was moved down to vice president, and in May 2021 he left the company.

Next came Jun Seki, who had been the No. 3 executive at Nissan. He became president in April 2020 and took over as CEO in June 2021. But Nagamori returned to the CEO post in April 2022, and Seki resigned in September that year. At the press conference, Nagamori said: "I was under the illusion that better successors existed outside the company than inside. It is all my responsibility." According to Bloomberg, Nagamori had already sidelined 3 successors before he recruited Seki.

The job then went to Hiroshi Kobe, a founding member of the company, who was 73 at the time. In April 2024, Kishida, a former Sony executive, became president and CEO. Yoshimoto lasted about 1 year and 9 months, Seki about 2 years and 5 months, Kobe about 1 year and 7 months, and Kishida about 2 years and 6 months.

The more a company's growth is tied to one person's judgment, the more every successor gets measured against that person. When the numbers slip, the founder can step back in. On average, the 4 stayed about 2 years, a short time in which to run a company their own way. Still, the same style of management turned a 4-person startup into a global leader.

Nagamori resigned as representative director and board member in December 2025, taking responsibility for the accounting misconduct, and gave up his honorary chairman title in February 2026. The nomination committee that chose Kishida in 2024 had included Nagamori and Kobe. This time, the company says, the committee was made up entirely of independent outside directors and picked Kaida after an assessment by a third-party firm and interviews by its members. Yoshimoto, Seki and Kishida had all been brought in from outside. Kaida served as president of a group company, now Nidec Advance Technology, from 2003 to 2018, and became a senior executive at Nidec itself in 2024.

A stock exchange review is coming

On October 28, 2025, the Tokyo Stock Exchange designated Nidec a Security on Special Alert. The reason: its auditor had declined to give an opinion on the annual securities report for the year ended March 2025, and the exchange judged that internal controls were in serious need of improvement.

The designation is not delisting. A year after it is imposed, the exchange reviews whether the company's internal controls have been put in place and are actually working. If they have, the designation is lifted. If the framework exists but is not yet working well, the designation continues. Only if no improvement has been made and none is expected does the case meet the criteria for delisting.

In the annual securities report filed on September 30, auditor PwC Japan again declined to give an opinion on the financial statements. It was the third time in a row, after the annual report for the year ended March 2025 and the review of the half-year report for the year to March 2026. The same day, Nidec itself reported a "material weakness" in its internal control over financial reporting and said those controls were not effective. On the quality side, an outside investigation committee found 844 cases of misconduct on September 4. We covered the accounting scandal in detail in an earlier article.

The October 1 slides set out a plan to clear the remaining issues in October so that the company can obtain an audit opinion. On keeping the listing, Kaida said, according to the Kyoto Shimbun, that the company knows what it has to do and will work toward an audit opinion with the deadline in mind. The president's exit and the giant writedown both surfaced just before October 28, a year after the designation. Whether the timing had anything to do with the review is unknown.

Succession elsewhere

Kantenna has also covered the quiet exit of Keyence's founder, the leadership change at Dentsu Group after failed overseas acquisitions and a governance gap at a Sanrio subsidiary.

At Disney, too, a former chief came back. Bob Iger stepped down in 2020 after 15 years as CEO and returned in November 2022, replacing his successor Bob Chapek.

In your country, is there a company that grew stronger after its founder left?

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