Kunio Nakamura, Ex-Head of Panasonic's Predecessor, Dies at 83

Osaka, Nov. 30 (Jiji Press)--Kunio Nakamura, former president of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., now Panasonic Holdings Corp. <6752>, died of pneumonia at a hospital in the western Japan prefecture of Osaka on Monday. He was 83.

Nakamura, while in office, spearheaded the company's drastic internal reform following the collapse of the dot-com bubble around 2000.

A graduate of Osaka University, Nakamura joined Matsushita Electric in 1962. He became its sixth president in 2000 and chairman in June 2006. After stepping down in June 2012, he served as its adviser.

He also served as vice chair of the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, for four years from May 2007.

In the aftermath of the bubble burst, Matsushita Electric plunged into a consolidated net loss of over 400 billion yen in the year through March 2002.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]