He also managed to make a mockery of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's comparatively piddling US$875,000 binge on his own company's stock.
Arora's purchase sends an important message to corporate Japan. For decades, Japanese CEOs have considered corporate governance a contradiction in terms, a vague Western construct that had little bearing on their leadership. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has tried prodding executives to embrace global business practices by urging shareholders to speak out, highlighting well-run companies, and asking boards to add more outside directors. But, as recent scandals at Toshiba and airbag maker Takata have shown, those efforts have been no match for a culture of corporate insularity over centuries.
Part of the problem is that Japan's chieftains tend to view themselves as caretakers with a mandate to avoid unnecessary risks. Accordingly, they err on the side of avoiding conflict rather than making big interventions, whether in the form of public shows of confidence or headline-making deals.
As Arora's gesture shows, however, investors often react positively when corporate executives take personal and public risks. Will anyone in Japan follow suit?
It's an interesting question for other Japanese startup successes, including e-retailer Rakuten and clothier Fast Retailing (which sells the Uniqlo brand).
In the context of corporate Japan, Rakuten's Hiroshi Mikitani and Tadashi Yanai, of Fast Retailing, are both considered mavericks. Mikitani has backed smaller startups and urged Abe's Government to follow his lead; Yanai has expanded aggressively overseas, made English the company's official language and scrapped seniority-based promotions.
Corporate reforms of this sort - especially labour reforms - have consequences for the entire Japanese economy, including its battle with deflation. Although Japan is technically short of workers, practices like lifetime employment and promotions tied to tenure mean few leave their jobs. Why? Because they don't want to work their way up the ranks again. And because it's hard to be promoted out of turn or fire anyone, Japanese workers have zero incentive to think big or take risks, which hampers innovation and productivity.
Foreigners don't have all the answers, but they are responsible for Japan's biggest corporate governance successes this year. It was Daniel Loeb, New York-based activist investor, who prodded secretive robot maker Fanuc to increase dividends and become more transparent. Earlier this month, when Loeb turned his sights on Suzuki, its shares surged US$2 billion in one day.
Now it's Arora's turn to shake things up. One question, of course, is where Arora (whose own pay package at SoftBank is a record-breaking US$135 million) will get the US$483 million he has pledged to spend on the company's stock.
If he borrows the money from a Japanese bank - many of which do business with SoftBank or own its shares - it could raise questions about conflicts of interest. That would be doubly true if he borrows from Son, the company's founder.
Still, there's no doubting that Arora plans to put money where his mouth is - and where his talents lie. It would be nice if Abenomics, the Government's economic revival programme, could muster more of that risk-taking spirit. But it might not be an accident that Japan needed the audacity of a gaijin to give its economy a jolt.
- Bloomberg
