Nidec's reported ¥1tn write-down equals 59% of its equity, and the messy books keep a cheap company whole

Mitsuya Kishida, 66, is out after less than three years running the world's largest precision-motor maker, an exit the company confirmed on Tuesday after a business weekly reported the board had voted to dismiss him↗ ¹²³. He goes over mounting losses at the E-Axle electric-vehicle drive unit, the business the 2020 plan to treble revenue put alongside acquisitions as a growth pillar ⁴⁵. On Wednesday, Nidec files its long-delayed annual securities report and announces corrections to five years of results ⁶. Shares fell 21% through Tuesday ².

One trillion yen against 1.7 trillion of equity

The reported charge is ¥1tn (about $6.4bn), to be booked for the fiscal year ended March 2026, large enough to erase the cumulative profit of the past decade ¹³⁷⁸. Nidec's equity is about ¥1.7tn, so the charge is 59% of it ³.

A business daily put the core impairment above ¥600bn↗, mainly EV traction motors, with accounting revisions lifting the total; in March the company had flagged just ¥250bn ⁶. The market value stands at ¥2.8tn against roughly ¥8tn in 2021, about ¥5tn gone for the shareholders who funded founder Shigenobu Nagamori's run of some 60 acquisitions ¹³⁹.

Two funds take opposite sides of the clean-up

Oasis Management holds 8% and wants governance reform and value unlocked ¹. Aspex, which says it owns 7%, wrote the board the day before the announcement arguing Kishida should stay to repair the financial reporting and resolve the Tokyo Stock Exchange's delisting warning ². The board, largely outside directors, chose to replace him to clarify accountability ⁶. The exchange put Nidec on special alert in January and fined it for a listing violation in May; the stock is already out of the Nikkei 225 ⁷¹⁰.

The messy books keep a cheap company whole

The crisis runs through subsidiaries in Italy, Switzerland and China and the inverter business: inventories overstated, government grants booked as income, labor costs capitalized to defer expense ³. Unresolved accounting issues complicate any deal, and foreign buyers must give prior notification to acquire shares in a company Japan designates as key-sector ³. Analysts see restructuring of the lossmaking automotive segment as one path; the appliance, industrial and precision-motor divisions still make money ³. Nagamori, who once told Reuters he had made no mistakes in some 60 acquisitions↗, resigned as chairman emeritus in February ⁹⁴¹⁰.

Wednesday prices the hole

The securities report lands three months late, after a filing extension Nidec secured in June↗ ¹⁰. Watch the final number against the reported ¥1tn, the successor (chief technology officer Michio Kaida is one candidate ⁶), and the company's own September releases plugging liquid cooling for AI data centers, the business that inherits whatever balance sheet survives ¹⁰. The books that forced out the CEO are the books any buyer must sign before touching the pieces.