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Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

This is the headquarters of Toyota Motor Corporation.

In a conference room in the headquarters office building, there were more than a dozen Toyota Motor executives sitting there, including representatives from Mitsui Zaibatsu, Mitsubishi Zaibatsu, Kawano Securities and other financial companies.

Toyota Motor's equity structure is quite complex. Basically, all major Japanese banking conglomerates and chaebols hold shares in Toyota Motor.

The Mitsui Group, in particular, has the ambition to control Toyota Motor Corporation, and its stake is increasing year by year.

On the other hand, the Toyota family, the founder of Toyota Motor, is still the nominal major shareholder today. However, due to various financings and the decline in the Toyota family's equity year by year, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Toyota family to maintain its position as the major shareholder.

Of course, even if they cannot maintain their position as the major shareholder, the Toyota family is still the actual controller of Toyota Motor, and their voting rights on the board of directors are far higher than the actual controlling rights.

Therefore, the Toyota family has never cared much about whether they can continue to serve as the major shareholder of Toyota Motor.

However, just when everyone thought that the major shareholder of Toyota Motor would shift from the Toyota family to the Mitsui Zaibatsu within a few years, a piece of news came at this moment that shocked the entire top management.

Citibank has become a major shareholder of Toyota Motor Corporation!

In fact, there are also some American shareholders among Toyota Motor’s shareholders, and they are all well-known consortiums, such as the Morgan Consortium and the State Street Consortium.

However, the shares of Toyota held by these American consortiums are not very large, only one or two points at most.

As for Citigroup, it has never held shares in Toyota Motor before.

Although Citibank is not as strong as Japanese local banks such as Mitsubishi Bank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Sumitomo Bank, and Mitsui Bank in Japan, as one of the four major financial conglomerates in the United States and even one of the largest banks in the world, Citibank has always been a force that cannot be ignored in Japan.

As an outsider, Citibank has a history of nearly 80 years in Japan and has already laid a solid foundation here. Therefore, even the Mitsui Zaibatsu dare not offend Citibank easily, unless they do not want to leave Japan.

However, this foreign bank, which had no relationship with Toyota Motor Corporation in the past, was suddenly rumored to want to acquire Toyota Motor?

This news indeed shocked Toyota's top executives, who also realized that the matter would be very difficult to handle.

“Everyone, I have personally called Mr. Kawai of Citibank and asked him several times about the specific purpose of acquiring Toyota Motor shares, but I have not received a clear answer so far.

They only said that Citigroup had no intention of acquiring the entire Toyota Motor Corporation, and the specific reasons for holding shares were not disclosed as they involved commercial confidentiality.

I even tried to get in touch with Walter Reston, chairman of Citibank, through the Morgan consortium, but still failed to get a direct response. This matter is of great importance and may have a profound impact on the future of Toyota.

Obviously, this series of actions by Citibank is not a simple financial investment behavior. We must work closely together to discuss countermeasures and see how to solve this problem. "Toyota Motor's president, Eiichi Toyoda, said sternly.

After saying this, he looked at everyone present, hoping that someone could come up with an effective solution.

The US-Japan auto trade negotiations have not yet concluded, and the fate of Japanese cars in the United States has not yet been determined, but Toyota has encountered such a thing again. It is really one crisis after another.

Moreover, the key point now is that it is basically certain that the Toyota shares acquired by Citibank during this period are enough to become the largest shareholder of Toyota Motor Corporation.

In other words, if the other party wants to interfere in the internal affairs of Toyota Motor Corporation, they already have the qualifications to do so, and relying on the shares they control, they have considerable say.

If the other party continues to increase its stake, it will be unknown whether the future of Toyota Motors can still be controlled by the Japanese.

Over the years, Japan's economy has developed rapidly, and the United States has gradually become an important market for Japanese companies.

In the United States, they can be said to be making a fortune.

But they never imagined that an American company would target Toyota Motor Corporation.

All of this made them very confused.

This amount of money invested is definitely not a small sum even for a top global financial group like Citibank.

If they didn't want to acquire Toyota, why would they increase their holdings in Toyota?
This is something they can't figure out.

"Is it possible that the other party has obtained authorization from the US government? Toyota's market share in the US has been increasing year by year over the years, and has already threatened US domestic car brands. This is why there are US-Japan auto trade negotiations. But the negotiations have been going on for almost two months, and neither we nor the US have given in, and we have never reached an agreement. A few days ago, the US Congress even directly threatened us to impose more severe sanctions on us.

At this time, Citibank suddenly bought a large number of shares in Toyota Motor Corporation, which made us think about it. "A senior executive of Toyota Motor stood up and expressed his thoughts.

As soon as the senior executive finished speaking, the atmosphere in the conference room suddenly became more tense.

At this time of US-Japan auto trade negotiations, such an incident suddenly occurred, which indeed makes it easy for people to wonder whether Citibank was instructed by the US government.

The representative of the Mitsui Zaibatsu frowned and said in a deep voice: "If Citibank's actions are really instructed by the US government, then our situation is quite tricky. This not only concerns the future of Toyota, but also the fate of the entire Japanese auto industry."

Representatives of the Mitsubishi Zaibatsu also expressed concerns: "Indeed, the deadlock in the US-Japan auto trade negotiations has put both sides under tremendous pressure. If the US government really intends to intervene through Citibank, then we must be prepared."

The representative of Kawano Securities raised a more realistic question: "How should we respond? Should we confront Citibank directly or seek compromise?"

Toyota Eiichi took a deep breath, stood up and continued, "First of all, we can't lose our composure. Although Citibank is very likely to become our major shareholder, they are not directly involved in the company's operations and have not even applied to join the board of directors. Our voting rights on the board of directors are still solid. This is our bottom line."

He went on to say: "Secondly, we need to ask the Japanese government to strengthen communication with the US government and the auto industry to understand their true intentions. If Citibank's actions are really directed by the US government, then we must resolve the issue through diplomatic channels. At this point, it is no longer under our control."

Since the other party has not made clear their purpose, they can only make the safest response possible.

If the other party really comes to acquire Toyota, we must at least have a plan to deal with it.

Ultimately, this meeting did not produce any useful decisions. After all, the enemy's purpose was unclear and they were unable to come up with an appropriate response.

Now, we can only defend passively.

After the meeting, representatives of the Mitsui Zaibatsu quickly reported the contents of the meeting to the Mitsui Group's board of directors.

In Japan, the Mitsui Group is one of the four traditional chaebols, second only to the Mitsubishi Group.

Over the years, the Mitsui Group has successively taken control of a number of large Japanese companies and its strength has been effectively increased.

Toyota, as the largest automobile company in Japan, has always been one of their targets. Their purpose, naturally, is to acquire Toyota and incorporate it into the huge system of the Mitsui Group, so as to further consolidate and enhance their position.

The four major conglomerates appear to be on good terms with each other, but in fact they are competing fiercely in private. The Mitsui Group not only wants to further replace the Mitsubishi Group, but also wants to prevent itself from being surpassed by the Sumitomo Group and the Yasuda Group behind it.

Therefore, whether or not the Mitsui Group can control Toyota Motor Corporation has become the key to the Mitsui Group. Even if they cannot replace the Mitsubishi Zaibatsu, they can still consolidate their own strength.

Almost all Japanese know about the Mitsui Group's ambition for Toyota Motor, and it has now been tacitly acknowledged. Even the Mitsubishi Group has not competed with the Mitsui Group for it.

However, who would have thought that a Citibank would appear halfway and break the original pattern.

After receiving the report, the board of directors of the Mitsui Group immediately held an emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures.

"Citibank's move is undoubtedly a huge threat to our Mitsui Group. We must take action and cannot sit back and watch them erode Toyota Motors step by step. With Citibank's strength, if they want to acquire Toyota Motors, they are likely to do so.

Although they deny that they want to control Toyota, Americans always lie and their words are not credible. Now, the shares we already control are far from enough to swallow up Toyota. Do you have any good solutions?" The president of Mitsui Group looked at the senior executives present with a heavy heart.

The Mitsui Group has been planning its investment in Toyota for a long time.

According to the original plan, in a few years, they would be able to become the largest shareholder of Toyota Motor, thus incorporating Toyota Motor into the Mitsui Group.

As for whether the company's decision-making power is still in the hands of the Toyota family, they don't care at all.

"We cannot afford to lose at this moment. We have been planning for Toyota for many years and we are determined to win. Even if Japanese cars completely lose the US market, we still have a huge global market, so the future of Toyota is still worth our control.

For the glory of the Mitsui Group, I suggest that you continue to increase your stake in Toyota while the price of Toyota is being affected by the US-Japan auto trade negotiations! "At this time, an older generation of the Mitsui family stood up and said without question.

...(End of chapter)