Olympus = Shady

[StylinRed]

Found this a pretty interesting read this morning

for the gist of it Olympus seems to have been committing fraud etc
FBI and UKs SFO involved; previous CEO was fired he says because he spotted odd behaviour in recent dealings before he was ceo and questioned them
the Chairman says otherwise but today has resigned

Olympus share prices has dropped 56% in the past week n a half

MANAGEMENT OCTOBER 26, 2011, 12:00 P.M. ET
Ousted Olympus CEO to Meet With FBI; Firm Chairman Resigns

TOKYO—In a pair of dramatic turns at Olympus Corp., the company's ousted chief executive said he was scheduled to meet with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the company said earlier that its chairman had stepped down.

Former CEO Michael Woodford said he was called to New York Wednesday to meet with the FBI, as a series of acquisitions made by the Japanese camera maker have come under scrutiny.

Mr. Woodford said he is "willing to provide every piece of information" he has to cooperate with the FBI. He declined to discuss details. The FBI declined to comment.

Last week, Mr. Woodford met with Britain's Serious Fraud Office, which investigates and prosecutes complex fraud cases. The FBI also recently met with a financial adviser on one of the deals.

In Tokyo, the maker of cameras and medical-imaging equipment said Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, a 47-year veteran of the company, resigned as chairman and president, citing investor and customer concerns in the two weeks since he sacked Mr. Woodford.

Mr. Woodford has said he was fired because he questioned steep payments for acquisitions Olympus made before he joined the board and called for the 70-year-old Mr. Kikukawa to resign.

Olympus's new president, Shuichi Takayama, continued the company's war of words with its former CEO, saying at a news conference Wednesday that Mr. Woodford was let go because he tended to "act on his own, without consulting others."

Mr. Woodford's allegations have rocked Olympus, pushing its shares down 56% since Oct. 13, the day before Mr. Woodford was fired. Several big Olympus shareholders have demanded greater disclosure about the deals. In one instance, Olympus paid nearly $700 million to a financial adviser based in the Cayman Islands for its assistance on a $1.9 billion purchase. In another, Olympus bought three small, unprofitable firms for ¥73.5 billion ($966 million), then wrote down three-quarters of their value the next year.

The transactions have attracted the attention of regulators and law enforcement authorities in the U.K. and the U.S.—and stirred activity among Japan's corporate watchdogs, often seen as more passive than their Western counterparts. The Tokyo Stock Exchange on Wednesday urged listed companies to enhance their corporate governance and ensure that compliance measures are implemented. The exchange also said it is strengthening cooperation with other financial regulators to make sure information is disclosed quickly.

Japan's securities watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, is looking into whether Olympus appropriately disclosed information on merger-and-acquisition activities in financial statements, a person close to the matter said Wednesday.

Olympus on Wednesday promoted Mr. Takayama, a 41-year veteran of the company who most ran the imaging business. Mr. Takayama, 61, joined the board in voting Oct. 14 to oust Mr. Woodford. Mr. Takayama was appointed only to the president's post. The chairman and CEO positions are vacant.

In a cramped hotel conference room near Olympus's headquarters reporters peppered Mr. Takayama for nearly an hour with questions about the deals, including whether the financial advisers on one acquisition had ties to "antisocial forces," a term used here to refer to organized crime. "I don't acknowledge that at all," Mr. Takayama responded.

Mr. Kikukawa's resignation was the latest chapter in a rare public battle between executives in Japan, a country known for boardroom harmony, employee loyalty and a reluctance to air corporate dirty laundry in public. Crusading executives—Japanese and foreign—face stiff headwinds. Last year, Fujitsu Ltd.'s former president said he was forced out after pushing through a series of restructuring measures. The company said he was asked to resign because of his associations with people possibly linked to organized crime, an accusation he denied.

A handful of foreign leaders, such as Carlos Ghosn of Nissan Motor Co., have managed to change entrenched corporate cultures.

Mr. Kikukawa tapped Mr. Woodford to be president in April, saying he hoped the Briton would shake up the company.

But Mr. Woodford has said that Mr. Kikukawa and other executives resisted when, starting in August, Mr. Woodford raised questions about the four deals. He said they refused to give clear answers and dragged their feet disclosing information. Mr. Woodford said he pressured Mr. Kikukawa into making Mr. Woodford CEO on Oct. 1, saying he needed the authority to conduct a thorough investigation.

Two days before he was fired, Mr. Woodford sent a letter to Mr. Kikukawa and the Olympus board alleging "serious governance concerns" and demanding Mr. Kikukawa's resignation, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Olympus acknowledged that Mr. Woodford wrote a letter demanding the chairman's resignation, but the company declined to comment on other details of Mr. Woodford's account.

Mr. Woodford said Wednesday that it was unclear whether Mr. Kikukawa's resignation will change much at the company. Mr. Kikukawa will retain his board position, as does Mr. Woodford.

At Wednesday's news conference, Mr. Takayama repeated Olympus's contention that the acquisitions and the nearly $700 million paid to advisers on one of the deals were "appropriate."

"This is just depressing," Mr. Woodford said. "Olympus needs someone completely new, not from the board, someone from the outside."

The roots of the controversy jolting the Japanese company this month extend to 2000, when Olympus was eager to find high-growth sectors outside its core businesses and started casting around for acquisitions.

On January 28 of that year, the board decided to put ¥30 billion in a venture-capital fund and set up a committee to vet investments into new businesses. Mr. Kikukawa, at the time a managing director, chaired the committee, according to a confidential 2009 report by a three-person independent panel that the company commissioned to look into the deals. Mr. Woodford provided a copy to the Journal, which received independent confirmation of the document's authenticity. Olympus confirmed the existence of such a report but declined to comment on what it said.

Olympus in 2003 started mulling acquisitions that could help expand its share of the medical-instruments market and began searching for well-connected advisers to broker such deals overseas, according to the report.

By 2006 the company had settled on a Japanese expatriate named Hajime "Jim" Sagawa, who was based in New York. Olympus told the panel that his qualifications included a succession of jobs at financial firms, including Nomura and Drexel Burnham, and the fact that he had proved himself by negotiating for Olympus with "a number of acquisition candidates," the report said.
—Kana Inagaki and Daisuke Wakabayashi contributed to this article.

Olympus Chairman Resigns - WSJ.com

[InvisibleSoul]

Olympus paid nearly $700 million to a financial adviser based in the Cayman Islands for its assistance on a $1.9 billion purchase. In another, Olympus bought three small, unprofitable firms for ¥73.5 billion ($966 million), then wrote down three-quarters of their value the next year.

[gdoh]

thats one hell of a finders fee

[achiam]

Off topic kinda, but read this week that the Cayman Islands are the world's 5th largest financial hub!

[FerrariEnzo]

Switzerland is probably #1?

[tegz]

any opinions on buying their stocks?