Takata Corp. handled their air bag crisis is the very reason why they lost one of their biggest investors, Sawakami Asset Management. He was one of the automotive supplier, 12th largest shareholder, but the firm lost faith in Takata after the management refused to explain what was happening during the crisis.
“We could not help feeling the management is not trustworthy,” fund manager Takahiro Kusakari said in an interview from his office in Tokyo. “We felt Takata had a ‘we are needed and our products are needed, so the business will come back and the situation won’t be that bad’ kind of attitude, downplaying the issue.”
Following the footsteps of other large auto manufacturer companies such as Honda, Nissan and Toyota by renouncing Takata's ammonium nitrate air bags, Ford has also dropped the air bag company as their supplier. The recalled vehicles due to Takata's ammonium nitrate inflators in the US alone have reached 19.2 million, but experts say there could be millions more.
Takata's air bags have shrapnel or metal fragments that killed eight drivers around the world and injured hundreds more. Other than that, the chemical inside the air bag deteriorates if exposed to airborne moisture for a long period of time. It will catch fire and cause the metal canister to blow apart, even when its design purpose was to contain an explosion.
Takata's losses could spread into the future because automakers like Ford and Honda don't want to use its inflators anymore. A judge also recently cleared the way for a class-action lawsuit to proceed, which likely means growing legal bills.
