My (uninformed) read was that was allowing him to save face. You are right, though. It can take a while to determine effectiveness of acquisitions. Perhaps i

My (uninformed) read was that was allowing him to save face. You are right, though. It can take a while to determine effectiveness of acquisitions. Perhaps it was performance on the large ones? It could also be cultural. It's very hard for foreigners to run Japanese companies, even iconoclastic ones.