Toyota (NYSE: TM) is the world's most successful car company, even after a bad year in which the global recession hammered it business. By most calculations, it is the world's largest auto company. It has a market cap of $100 billion even with its stock down 40% from its 52-week high. GM's (NYSE: GM) has been below $3 billion recently.
All three of the U.S. car companies have the same CEO that it did a year ago. After turning in remarkably poor results based, to some extent, on poor product plans, none of the chief executives has paid for it.
Toyota is about to replace its CEO. According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "Toyota Motor Corp.'s senior board members have selected Akio Toyoda, grandson of the company's founder, to head the company as its next president." Toyota's current presided, Katsuaki Watanabe, will stay with the company, but has been kicked upstairs.
Toyota has been the world's leading car company in innovation and efficient manufacturing, and it has been widely imitated. Perhaps its attitude toward management should be imitated as well. Poor results cause management change. The message has not made it from Tokyo to Detroit.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
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