Softbank board loses dissenting voice as Uniqlo founder leaves
The founder of clothes company Uniqlo will resign from the board of Softbank after 18 months in the job.
Tadashi Yanai, who is chief executive of Uniqlo, will leave the Softbank independent board member post at the end of the month to focus on his fashion business.
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Yanai is a longstanding ally of Softbank founder Masayoshi Son, and is one of just three external board members at the company.
The resignation comes at a time when SoftBank is battling with the fallout from the failed IPO of Wework.
Son said he misjudged co-founder Adam Neumann’s character and pledged to strengthen corporate governance at the group’s investments.
However, experts have criticised Softbank’s governance, saying it has few truly independent voices that can question Son’s judgement.
“They have low governance standards,” said Nicholas Benes of The Board Director Training Institute of Japan.
“If they don’t require higher standards of themselves, it might be hard to require them of investee companies,” he said.
Softbank recorded its first quarterly loss in 14 years last month.
Nevertheless, Son defended the board’s rigour at the time.
He said Yanai was one of the board members who criticised him for the Wework investment.
“Almost all the board members gave me a hard time. I ended up being very exhausted,” he said.
Yanai is Japan’s richest man.
He has made a name for being willing to voice dissent at Son’s decisions.
His successor has not been decided, a SoftBank spokesperson said.
It marks another loss of one of Softbank’s most outspoken voices after another outside director, Shigenobu Nagamori, founder and chief executive of Nidec, stepped down two years ago.
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The other independent directors currently on SoftBank’s board are Masami Iijima, chairman of trading house Mitsui, and professor Yutaka Matsuo from the University of Tokyo, an artificial intelligence expert with little corporate experience.