Olympus Board Will Be Under Fire on April 20th.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange released a statement yesterday revealing an emergency shareholders meeting with the Olympus board on April 20th. The Japanese maker of camera and medical equipment is suing 19 executives.
The reason for this drastic measure is accounting fraud. A former CEO, Michael Woodford, has come forward to bring the situation to light. Olympus has admitted hiding $1.7bn worth of losses for up to twenty years.
October of 2011 was the first time this situation was publicized. Woodford claimed he lost his chief executive job after expressing concern about Olympus’ accounting practices. The transaction that caught his attention was $687m to financial advisors when Olympus was taking over the UK medical equipment company Gyrus.
Since this time, the Olympus’ share price has fallen approximately 50%, they have lost $4 billion of market value, and the former chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa along with three other directors, have resigned from the Olympus board.
Current officials will be nominating a new Olympus board by mid-March and the company is expecting management decisions in April.
Last year Olympus was put on a watchlist for delisting after they admitted increasing fees and overpaying for three Japanese companies. Since then they have been fined $130,000 and must submit annual reports on how and what they are doing to improve management.
No decisions will be made until a new Olympus board and management team is selected, however, investors are showing loads of interest in the situation. Some of these include Fujifilm Holdings Corp, TPG Capital, and a private-equity firm of billionaire David Bonderman.
Whatever happens, Woodford said he will be present at this meeting and it will give shareholders a chance to ask Olympus board members and management the questions they want answers to. His statement read “This will be the first formal opportunity for all of the company’s shareholders to question and hold its management to account.”
Faye Joyce has written 108 articles on EpostMedia.
