After handing over the reins in June, Nidec Corp. founder and former Chief Executive Officer Shigenobu Nagamori is unimpressed with the manufacturer’s recent profitability and stock-market performance, going as far as to say the world’s top maker of mini motors is facing its biggest-ever business crisis.
Nagamori, 77, recently told his senior managers that they need to do more to boost Nidec’s business performance and share price, a person familiar with the matter said. Nagamori is known to regularly send such messages to employees of the company he founded in a shack in 1973.
Nagamori told them to aim for operating profit of at least ¥95 billion ($863 million) in the first half of the fiscal year ending March, an increase of 37% from the same period a year earlier, the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said of Nagamori’s admonition to an internal audience. The target would put the company slightly ahead of its forecast to reach profit of ¥80 billion in the first half and ¥180 billion for the year.