Sony’s tormentor interviewed

Press, 16 February 1984, Page 21

Sony’s tormentor interviewed

By

From his small office in a central Tokyo apartment building, Masayuki Kajitani recalls his triumph at teaching the world’s most famous electronics company a lesson never to be forgotten. “I think it will enter the ‘Guinness Book of Records’,” he confidently predicts. He belongs to a shadowy group of professional fixers in Japan, known as Sokaiya. Until Sony’s annual meeting of shareholders last month, the Sokaiya had been in the doldrums. That was before the red-eyed president of Sony, Mr Norio Ohga, dragged himself from the meeting hall at 11.30 p.m. and confessed to aides, “I am very tired.” Mr Ohga had survived 13% hours grilling on every aspect of his company’s performance. As well as having to explain why Sony’s 1983 sales were down for the first time in eight years, and why profits had slumped 35 per cent to $125 million, he also had to field objections to the style of address printed on the shareholders’ invitation cards. Procedural trifles were endlessly debated. With Sony’s Betamax video system slashed from a 60 per cent hold on the market seven years ago to 25 per cent by the price-

Peter McGill

in Tokyo

cutting onslaught of the VHS camp, led by Victor and Matsushita, he also had to endure a roasting for a $lOO,OOO advertising campaign in Tokyo newspapers. Provocative slogans such as “Betamax: Is it disappearing?” were splashed across whole pages. They were red rags to Sokaiya and ordinary shareholders alike. Mr Kajitani is executive director of Rondan Doyukai, one of Japan’s biggest Sokaiya groups. It sent eight of its 40 agents to badger Sony. Until 16 months ago, Rondan used to receive from a few thousand to millions of dollars a time from general affairs managers of companies as payment to keep the peace. The method was simple: dig up dirt on a company, and then undertake to withhold it from the shareholders’ meeting. Major company meetings were often wrapped up in 20 minutes. Then the commercial law was amended to stop such contributions and life became difficult. At first, the Sokaiya were shaky, and Sony got through last year’s meeting in a relatively brief one hour and 30 minutes. Now the Sokaiya have caught up. “Before they used to blackmail us, but we didn’t

make any such arrangement, and that’s why our shareholders’ meeting this year lasted so long,” a Sony official cautiously explained. “They hope to get a reputation with other companies by threatening a repeat of the Sony meeting.” Mr Kajitani sees it differently. Unassumingly dressed in tweed sports jacket, striped tie, and carefully permed hair (a trademark in his line of business), he assures Sony it was singled out only for sentimental reasons. “By refusing professional stockholders, they stopped human relations. Their management style is too dry for Japanese tastes, to neoAmerican,” he claims. “They stop everything, including heart.” Copyright — London Observer Service.