👉 Background: Toshiba has been a major player in Japan's tech industry for nearly 150 years and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange for 74 years. It has grown into a bit of an 'everything' company that sells electronics, heavy duty equipment, and even some nuclear equipment.

👉 What happened: Back in 2015, Toshiba faced some serious 'accounting malpractices', where it overstated its profits by over $1.2 billion dollars. Then in 2017, it required more than $5.4 billion of cash from investors. But, those activist investors that came on board clashed with Toshiba's management.

👉 What else: Now, Toshiba will be taken private by a group of Japanese private equity investors for $14 billion USD. This is a relief for the Toshiba company, which wasn't quite ready for the pressure from international activist investors.

What's the key learning?

💡Shareholder activists have the capability to shake up the corporate world. Since 2012, Japanese corporates and government have put a lot of effort into attract foreign investment.

💡In fact, proportion of Toshiba held shares by foreign investors reached as high as 72 percent. But, that meant Western investors wanted the transparency that they're used to with Western companies.

💡The number of public demands made by activist investors on Japanese companies has skyrocketed. It went from just 11 demands in 2013 to 165 by 2020. And Toshiba just wasn't ready for this.