Nidec's accounting irregularities are believed to have resulted from the combination of years of deferring asset treatment and a share-price-first mindset. The problems spread from the 2016 project to restore asset soundness and worsened alongside the 2022 structural reforms and the maintenance of targets for fiscal 2025. One view presented is that Shigenobu Nagamori's (永守重信) “3K” management and stock market valuations reinforced the system.
In 2016, the disposal of unsound assets emerged as an organizational issue, and a policy was adopted under which asset impairments were recognized within the scope of achieving profit targets. The core of the problem is said to have been an inverted way of thinking: setting the designated profit target first and then recognizing losses to match it, rather than applying proper accounting treatment.
Even during the large-scale structural reforms in fiscal 2022, some of the approximately ¥160 billion in consolidated accounting applications were classified in a way that prioritized securing operating profit, and it has been suggested that this may have been intended to avoid audit findings.
Maintaining the full-year operating profit target of ¥240 billion for fiscal 2025 is also believed to have created an incentive to defer the recognition of remaining losses, laying the groundwork for inflated profits. The independent committee pointed to the divergence between profit targets and accounting treatment.
This case is significant not merely as an isolated instance of misconduct, but because a share-price-first mindset and the organizational culture caused dysfunction over an extended period. This view leads to the argument that a transition is needed from the rationalization-focused management of the Heisei era to value-creation management in the Reiwa era.