Tokyo Papers Run Pickens’ Ad Blasting Auto Firms

Major Japanese newspapers today published ads from Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens that accuse the country’s biggest auto makers--without naming names--of colluding to keep consumer prices high and some shareholder dividends low.

Pickens accused Toyota Motor Co. and its powerful advertising agency Dentsu last week of trying to block publication of the ads, which contend that collusive business practices force higher prices on consumers. Toyota and Dentsu denied the allegations.

The takeover strategist charged that Toyota intervened because of his battle to exercise ownership rights in Koito Manufacturing Co., an auto lighting equipment maker close to Toyota. Pickens is the largest stockholder in Koito.

The Asahi Shimbun, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Yomiuri Shimbun, all major dailies, published identical ads from Pickens in their morning editions. None of the ads, which also blame Japan’s big auto makers for low returns to shareholders of auto parts companies, mentioned any auto maker by name.

Pickens’ lawyer, Kanji Ishizumi, said the ad as originally submitted named Toyota, Honda and Nissan Motor Co. as leaders of separate automobile keiretsu, or business groups, that force their auto parts makers to sell parts at low prices.

However, Ishizumi said, he was forced to drop their names because it was the only way to get the ads published.

Ishizumi said the fact that all three newspapers ran the same ad on the same day illustrates the degree to which the move was calculated after Pickens made his charges public.

“After media coverage of the issue, the newspapers compromised and printed the ads,” Ishizumi said.