Kadokawa CEO keeps his job despite investor pressure over Elden Ring profits

Kadokawa's CEO Takeshi Natsuno survived a shareholder vote at the company's 2026 Annual General Meeting, holding onto his position despite a sustained campaign by activist investor group Oasis Management to have him removed. His shareholder approval rating dropped sharply — from 90% down to 59.68% — but it was enough to stay in the chair.

Oasis Management, a Hong Kong-based activist investor group, has been steadily building its stake in Kadokawa and earlier this year overtook Sony to become the company's largest shareholder. Their core grievance is that Kadokawa left money on the table by allowing Elden Ring to be published through Bandai Namco rather than self-publishing — what Oasis calls "continued value leakage." The group set up a dedicated campaign site, A Better Kadokawa, and published a manifesto arguing that Natsuno backtracked on commitments to bring publishing economics in-house, letting third-party publishers capture profits that should have gone to shareholders. They formally called on investors to vote against Natsuno at the AGM.

FromSoftware has been one of the most critically acclaimed studios in the industry for years, with Elden Ring in particular becoming a massive commercial hit after its 2022 launch — selling tens of millions of copies and winning numerous Game of the Year awards. The Bandai Namco publishing arrangement that Oasis objects to is a long-standing one; FromSoftware has historically relied on external publishers for distribution, and shifting to full self-publishing would represent a significant structural change for the studio and its parent. Kadokawa has said it will examine its management structure and executive compensation following the vote, which suggests the pressure from Oasis hasn't entirely fallen on deaf ears even if Natsuno kept his seat.

The dramatically reduced approval rating — down more than 30 percentage points in a single year — signals that Oasis has successfully rattled other investors even without winning the vote outright. Whether that translates into real changes at Kadokawa, or whether Oasis continues pushing for a management shake-up ahead of the next AGM, remains to be seen.