Jun 25 (Nikkei) - Toshiba CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa will serve as interim chairman of the company's board after the ousting of Osamu Nagayama at the annual general meeting, the Japanese industrial group said Friday night.
George Olcott, whose nomination to the board as a new outside director was approved by shareholders, has declined the appointment. Toshiba said it had accepted his decision.
The announcement comes after shareholders rejected proposals to reappoint Nagayama as well as outside director Nobuyuki Kobayashi, a member of Toshiba's audit committee, following an independent investigation into attempts by the company to influence activist investors last year.
Olcott, a former UBS banker who also serves as an outside director at Japanese beer maker Kirin Holdings, said he had concluded he could not contribute to Toshiba in the way he had hoped and anticipated, according to Toshiba's statement.
Audit committee chair Junji Ota and another committee member, Takashi Yamauchi, were removed from the list of candidates this month after the probe found evidence that Toshiba colluded with the government in a pressure campaign.
These developments mean that only eight of the original 13 candidates nominated by Toshiba in May will sit on the board.
