The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) will introduce new regulations on the adoption of takeover defenses by listed companies by the end of the year, according to a report on the Nikkei website. The new rules will primarily be concerned with the elimination of defenses intended to entrench senior management. The TSE intends to achieve this by demanding more thorough information from listed companies about their takeover defenses.
At the end of June, the TSE published a questionnaire asking for investors’ opinions on the corporate governance of listed companies. The exchange has made the decision to focus on takeover defenses after receiving a lot of negative feedback from both domestic and foreign investors about such defenses, according to the Nikkei report.
About 500 Japanese companies had reportedly introduced poison pill takeover defenses as of the end of July 2008.