TOKYO
Nidec Corp., which makes a lot of electric motors and is based in Japan, said on Friday that it has replaced its second-in-command and will choose its next president from within the company in the spring of 2024.
Nidec said that Jun Seki, the company’s president and chief operating officer, who used to be the CEO, will step down to take responsibility for a drop in the company’s earnings.
Between now and Saturday, Vice Chairman Hiroshi Kobe will take over.
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A lot of people were worried that the company wouldn’t be able to find a good leader to replace founder and Chairman Shigenobu Nagamori.
Nagamori said at a news conference on Friday that Kobe will only be in charge for a short time. In April of next year, the company will choose five vice presidents, and in April of 2024, one of them will be named president.
“I take full responsibility for why it took so long for my replacement to come along,” Nagamori said. “Looking back, I had the wrong idea that I could find a better successor outside the company than inside it.”
Nagamori, who is 78 years old, hired Seki, a former executive at Nissan (OTC:NSANY) Motor Co., in 2020 to help Nidec become a major player in making parts for cars of the next generation.
Seki became CEO in June 2021, but Nagamori fired him less than a year later because he wasn’t happy with the company’s business performance and the drop in its stock price.
Nidec’s automotive products unit, which was run by Seki, had an operating loss in the first quarter of this year. This was due to COVID-19 lockdowns, a shortage of microchips around the world, and high costs for restructuring and development. But Nidec’s operating income for the quarter was pretty much the same as the previous quarter.
Nagamori said he was “shocked” by the poor performance of the unit led by Seki on Friday. He also said that the company won’t bring in people from outside the company to take over the top job right away in the future.
He also reiterated his intention to hand over leadership in two years, which he stated in a July earnings call, and he denied rumours that he intended to stay in the job for a long time.
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Kobe, who is 73 years old, has worked for Nidec since it opened in 1973. Nagamori said that he has “absolute trust” in Kobe, who he has known for 55 years, and that the two of them will work together to improve the company’s performance.
So far this year, Nidec’s stock has fallen 33%.
