A Japanese furniture founder fired his daughter, she beat him in a proxy fight, and the company was sold

Katsuhisa Otsuka founded Otsuka Kagu, a furniture retailer selling high-end furniture through large showrooms with sales staff^†. His daughter Kumiko Otsuka became president in 2009 and wanted a more open, lower-cost model^†. In June 2014 her father dismissed her. She was reinstated in early 2015 and he challenged her board slate at the annual meeting, asking shareholders to choose between father and daughter^†. The family split: his wife, a major shareholder, and his eldest son backed him; Kumiko's younger siblings backed her. Both sides campaigned publicly for institutional and retail votes, which a law-firm case study described as a rare proxy fight between insiders. At the March 27, 2015 shareholder meeting she won by an undisclosed majority. The company struggled after the fight. In December 2015 Reuters reported that Yamada Denki would take control by buying new shares; the tie-up was later completed, with Yamada taking a majority stake in 2019^†. Kumiko Otsuka left the company in 2020^†.