Toyota's Founding Family Loses Millions after Market Share Prices Fall

March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp.’s looming loss isn’t just a management challenge for Akio Toyoda, tapped to lead the carmaker his family founded. The global recession has cut the value of Toyota shares he and his father own by $429 million and their dividend income may also fall.

The value of Akio Toyoda’s 4.6 million Toyota shares shrank 46 percent in the past nine months to 14 billion yen ($145 million) as of the close of trading today, while father Shoichiro Toyoda’s 11.2 million shares fell to 34.2 billion yen. The elder Toyoda, Toyota’s honorary chairman and past president, is the largest private shareholder, followed by Akio, based on filing data.

The decline is an unrealized loss for the wealthy industrial family since neither has sold Toyota shares, according to available filing data. Still, the descendents of Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda will take a direct hit should the world’s largest carmaker reduce dividend payments, as analysts predict.

“The dividend going down will get the family’s attention faster than the stock price dropping,” said Jim Hall, principal of 2953 Analytics in Birmingham, Michigan.


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