Activist investor Strategic Capital has pursued an initiative involving multiple companies at their 2026 annual general meetings, proposing to block parent companies from exercising their voting rights and make the support of minority shareholders visible. The targets include GungHo Online Entertainment, and attention is focused on how the campaign will develop.
At their 2026 annual general meetings, Strategic Capital submitted shareholder proposals to 4 major companies using Article 160 of the Companies Act. This unusual approach seeks to isolate parent-company voting rights and pass special resolutions through a vote by general minority shareholders only, known as a majority-of-minority (MOM) vote.
The 4 target companies were GungHo Online Entertainment, Osaka Steel, Keihanshin Building, and Goldcrest. Each company faces specific issues, and the proposals were submitted to make the views of general shareholders visible.
At Osaka Steel, the voting rights held by its parent company, Nippon Steel, were excluded, and the approval rate reached 62.59%, approaching the threshold for a special resolution. Keihanshin Building has a low PBR of approximately 0.7x, and concerns have been raised that the influence of cross-shareholding shareholders is slowing the pace of management reform. At GungHo, the option of share repurchases was proposed as a means of addressing the influence of major shareholders and factors putting downward pressure on the share price.
At Goldcrest, the president and a personal asset management company hold approximately 58%, while the PBR is around 0.6x. Strategic Capital criticized the lack of investor relations disclosure and one-person management, and put forward a proposal that would allow minority shareholders to express their intention to exit. The firm has indicated that it plans to expand similar proposals to other companies.