Toshiba has moved a step closer to holding an unprecedented double extraordinary general meeting of shareholders, as the Japanese technology group rehired Goldman Sachs ahead of a showdown with its big investors.
In a move imposed upon its management by shareholders that include the secretive Asian activist fund Effissimo, Toshiba announced on Friday that it was setting February 1 as the official record date for voting rights — an administrative measure required before an EGM.
The decision by Toshiba in effect acknowledges that it must now hold an EGM at the demand of its investors — a process that remains exceptionally rare in Japan and which is widely described as the “nuclear option” by funds engaging with corporations in the country.
In a first for corporate Japan, Toshiba in December received two separate EGM demands from Effissimo and Farallon — which together hold about 15 per cent of its stock. People close to Toshiba said that the company was…