Otsuka Kagu Ltd. President Kumiko Otsuka won a proxy fight against her father and the company's founder at an annual shareholders' meeting on Friday.

"From today, Otsuka Kagu will be operating our business with a new management team," Kumiko told a news conference after the shareholders' meeting in Tokyo.

"Achieving a midterm business plan, reforming corporate governance, reviewing store operation and rebuilding the brand, we will proceed with plans to take Otsuka Kagu to the next stage."

The company's 71-year-old founder, Katsuhisa Otsuka, was also the firm's chairman. Kumiko, his eldest daughter at age 47, had been embroiled in a bitter family feud with him over the Tokyo-based furniture retailer's business strategy, with both making proposals to shareholders to oust the other from the board and retain the post of president for themselves.

Kumiko's proposal won 61 percent of the vote.

Asked if she intended to restore her relationship with her father, she said "from a company and shareholder perspective, I think we'll need to communicate in a sincere manner," but declined to comment further.

Kumiko aims to promote more midpriced products and boost the appeal of the company's stores to expand its customer base. Katsuhisa, who remains the company's largest shareholder despite losing the proxy vote, wanted to focus on selling premium products through consulting services.

Katsuhisa criticized Kumiko for shifting to cheaper products and not spending enough on advertising.

The family feud had been in the media spotlight for several weeks, with animosity between the pair continuing at the shareholders' meeting.

Katsuhisa slammed Kumiko and asked other shareholders to support his proposal, which would have seen him reappointed once again as president, saying that many workers still believed in his strategy.

"Employees came to me. They think that only I can revive the company," he said.

Katsuhisa, who was himself ousted as president in January, said the manner in which he was stripped of that post was unreasonable, even calling it "a coup."Katsuhisa handed over the presidency to Kumiko in 2009 but took on the position again last July as the firm was struggling.

In a sign of the extent of the family divide, Kumiko's mother, Chiyoko, also criticized her daughter's way of doing business, including overseeing marketing cuts.

"I feel very sad to say something like this, but I don't believe that the current management team is capable of running the company," Chiyoko said at the meeting.

About 200 individual shareholders attended the meeting with many expressing anger and dismay over the situation and suggesting that father and daughter work together.

"Seeing a series of news reports on (the fight between Katsuhisa and Kumiko), I am disappointed," one shareholder said.

Another said people would be unlikely to buy furniture, which is usually associated with a happy occasion, from a company a father and daughter were fighting over.

Kumiko said the pair could not come to an agreement, particularly on corporate governance practices.

Otsuka Kagu has been in a slump since 2008 as rivals armed with cheaper items, such as Nitori and IKEA, increasingly dominate the market.

Kumiko aims to boost sales to ¥59.4 billion from the current ¥55.5 billion and operating profit to ¥1.9 billion from a current ¥400 million loss.