Strengthening Governance

Governance reforms

We continue to evolve our corporate governance with an emphasis on management transparency and evolving management to reflect the opinions of the capital markets.
The Company received an investment from OEP NG LLC (OEP), a fund under the investment arm of major US bank JP Morgan Chase, in 2011, which led to the establishment of an IR Department in 2014 and the development of a system to reflect capital market thinking in management. Since then, under the policy of being in the same boat as our shareholders, we have been promoting governance reforms, including the appointment of external directors, reform of executive remuneration, abolition of takeover defense measures and review of the board structure, etc. In June 2023, the first female director was appointed and more people with management experience in business companies have joined our external directors. In June, 2024, NICIGAS changed the name of the advisory body to the Board of Directors to the Nomination and Remuneration, Environmental, etc., Committee ("NR&E Committee"). The reason for this is to clarify its objectives. We will continue to reform corporate governance to further increase corporate value.

Unbundling of cross shareholdings

We completely unbundled not only our own cross shareholdings but also all of NICIGAS shares held by the other parties as cross shareholdings. This is because we believe that our own cross shareholdings are an obstacle to improving our return on assets and the unbundling of NICIGAS’ shares held by the other parties will lead to improved discipline in the Company's corporate management.

NICIGAS’ approach to shareholding

NICIGAS is committed to optimizing asset efficiency and the Company has adopted a policy of not holding unnecessary assets, actively selling shares accordingly. To provide greater transparency for shareholders and investors regarding its approach, starting from FYE 03/24, NICIGAS disclosed its shareholdings in 4 categories: strategic holdings, cross shareholdings, pure investment holdings, and a newly added category, investments under negotiation for sale-off. This enhanced disclosure was recognized, and NICIGAS was selected for the Japan’s Financial Services Agency’ Reference Casebook of Good Practices on the Disclosure of Narrative Information: 2024 Edition for securities reports. The Company will continue to prioritize transparent disclosures for its shareholders and other stakeholders.