Tokyo: Toyota Motor Corporation's looming loss isn't just a management challenge for Akio Toyoda, tapped to lead the carmaker his family founded. The global recession has cut the value of Toyota shares he and his father own by $429 million (Dh1.5 billion) and their dividend income may also fall.

The value of Akio Toyoda's 4.6 million Toyota shares shrank 46 per cent in the past nine months to 14 billion yen at the close of trading yesterday, while father Shoichiro Toyoda's 11.2 million shares fell to 34.2 billion yen.

The elder Toyoda, Toyota's honorary chairman and past president, is the largest private shareholder, followed by Akio, based on filing data.

The decline is an unrealised loss for the wealthy industrial family since neither has sold Toyota shares, according to available filing data.

Still, the descendents of Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda will take a direct hit should the world's largest carmaker reduce dividend payments, as analysts predict. "The dividend going down will get the family's attention faster than the stock price dropping," said Jim Hall, principal of 2,953 Analytics in Birmingham, Michigan.

Toyota pays dividends twice a year, and hasn't set amounts for 2009. The payment has risen 28 per cent in the past five years and last year totalled 140 yen a share. Spokesman Paul Nolasco declined to comment on this year's dividend plans.

For 52-year-old president-to-be Akio Toyoda, 2008 dividend payments may have been worth 639 million yen, based on Bloomberg calculations. For his 83-year-old father it was likely 1.57 billion yen.

"I'm almost sure Toyota will cut its dividend this year and next," said Koji Endo, a Credit Suisse Group AG auto analyst based in Tokyo.

"Obviously they are not happy about Toyota's share price fluctuations but probably this will not have any impact on their wealth."

Toyota doesn't disclose executive pay and doesn't comment on the holdings of "private" investors, Toyota's Nolasco said.

The Toyodas don't rank among Japan's 40 wealthiest people, based on data published by Forbes Asia last month.

The magazine's 2009 list required a minimum net worth of $480 million, based on February 6 stock prices, exchange rates and reported incomes.

Shoichiro Toyoda's reported holdings of Toyota and affiliates Denso Corporation and Aisin Seiki Company are valued at $362 million as. Akio Toyoda's holdings of Toyota and affiliate Toyota Boshoku Corporation were valued at $141.5 million.

Toyota closed at 5,670 yen in Tokyo Stock Exchange trading on June 18, the highest in the past year.