Leadership change at Toyota?

The drama continues at Toyota, as a report in The Wall Street Journal suggests company president Katsuaki Watanabe will step down from the top job in 2009.

This news -- albeit somewhat speculative -- comes in the wake of Toyota's recent announcement it would post its first operating loss in 70 years for the fiscal year that concludes next March.

The car-making juggernaut expects to record an operating loss of 150 billion yen ($2.45 billion) for the 2008/09 financial year -- marking the first time it's been in the red since it started reporting annual earnings in March 1941.

"We are facing an unprecedented urgent situation," Watanabe recently told assembled media at a news conference.

Although the losses would be a bitter pill for Toyota to swallow, The Wall Street Journal's report doesn't cite this as the reason for the management change.

The journal is suggesting Akio Toyoda, an executive vice president at Toyota and grandson of Toyota's founder Kiichiro Toyoda, will step up and fill the void left by Watanabe, who is expected to take over the role of company chairman from Fujio Cho, who is believed to be suffering from health problems.

Toyoda, 52, joined Toyota in 1984 and served in a variety of posts before being promoted to senior management in 2000. His father, Shoichiro, was the last Toyoda family member to lead the company, stepping down as president in 1992.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper has called the return of a family member "taisei hoken" -- allegedly a reference to the restoration of imperial rule in Japan in 1868. However, Toyota denies the story and says nothing has been decided.