{"id":52411,"date":"2025-09-26T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=52411"},"modified":"2025-09-26T18:14:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T09:14:55","slug":"japanese-game-publisher-gungho-rejects-activist-investors-proposal-to-fire-longtime-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-game-publisher-gungho-rejects-activist-investors-proposal-to-fire-longtime-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese game publisher GungHo rejects activist investor\u2019s proposal to fire longtime CEO\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Japanese game company GungHo Online Entertainment<\/strong>, known for developing Puzzle and Dragons and more recently, publishing Nihon Falcom\u2019s Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, has rejected a proposal from activist investors to dismiss its longtime CEO Kazuki Morishita (source: ITmedia<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposal was put forward by Strategic Capital, a Tokyo-based investment fund which controls over 11% of GungHo\u2019s voting rights. During an extraordinary shareholders\u2019 meeting held at its request<\/a> on September 24, the activist pushed for: 1) the requirements for ousting an executive to be relaxed 2) for Morishita to be fired from his position as CEO. While the first proposal was accepted, the attempt to remove Morishita failed, not gaining enough votes from majority shareholders.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategic Capital has been publicly criticizing GungHo\u2019s CEO<\/a> for a while now, holding him responsible for the company\u2019s lack of hits in the 13 years since the launch of Puzzle and Dragons. While the activists consider him underqualified and overpaid<\/a>, GungHo has been defending the CEO vigorously, arguing that he has made tremendous contributions to the company\u2019s performance and that his removal \u201cwould significantly damage corporate value,\u201d as The Nikkei<\/a> reports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But investors remain unconvinced. Strategic Capital\u2019s president Tsuyoshi Maruki told reporters that the results of the meeting were \u201cdisappointing,\u201d and that his fund would continue pushing for management reforms. The common objective of so-called activist investors is generally to increase shareholder returns and thus expand their profit margin, yet GungHo\u2019s share price has declined by 35% in the past decade, which could be why the fund is making such aggressive moves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related article: Square Enix shares reach highest price since the beginning of 2025 after activist investor raises stake to 10.01%\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GungHo Online Entertainment voted against ousting its CEO Kazuki Morishita on September 24, but activists plan to continue pushing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":50403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[261,17],"class_list":["post-52411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-financial-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nJapanese game publisher GungHo rejects activist investor\u2019s proposal to fire longtime CEO\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"GungHo Online Entertainment voted against ousting its CEO Kazuki Morishita on September 24, but activists plan to continue pushing.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-game-publisher-gungho-rejects-activist-investors-proposal-to-fire-longtime-ceo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Japanese game publisher GungHo rejects activist investor\u2019s proposal to fire longtime CEO\u00a0 - 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