NTT's first private chief dies

Shinto oversaw NTT's revamp in 1985 from a government monopoly to a publicly traded company

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TOKYO, Japan -- Hisashi Shinto, the former president of Japan's largest telecom, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., died on Sunday.

Shinto succumbed to pneumonia in a Tokyo hospital at the age of 92.

Shinto became president of state-owned Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Public Corp. in January 1981. In April 1985, he oversaw the company's privatization from a government monopoly.

He became chairman of NTT in 1988. But a corruption scandal forced Shinto to resign within a year.

Shinto was arrested in March 1989 on bribery charges, over receiving 10,000 shares of Recruit Cosmos Co. in return for favors.

Shinto was convicted and sentenced to a two-year prison term, suspended for three years. He became an adviser to the NTT group in 1997 but resigned in March 2001.

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