Olympus board seeks fresh start
Source: Agencies |
April 21, 2012, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
SHAREHOLDERS of Olympus Corp approved a new board yesterday, hoping for a fresh start at the camera and medical device maker that hid US$1.7 billion of investment losses in Japan's biggest corporate scandal in decades.
At a sometimes rowdy extraordinary meeting in a Tokyo hotel, local institutional investors and Olympus' lenders and suppliers voted for a new management slate and approved five years' worth of restated company accounts.
Michael Woodford, the firm's British ex-CEO whose dismissal six months ago blew the lid off the accounting scandal, said he may seek to have the vote annulled as Olympus executives refused to say why he had been sacked for "gross misconduct." Woodford has begun legal action against his former employer in Britain.
While Olympus will hope the vote draws a line under a scandal that has wiped more than US$4 billion off its market value, Woodford and foreign investors, who own 25-30 percent of the firm, have sought a change in a deep-rooted culture of cross-shareholdings and cosy ties between banks and boardrooms.
Olympus' new president will be 30-year company veteran Hiroyuki Sasa, and new chairman is Yasuyuki Kimoto, a 63-year-old former executive from the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, owner of a 3.4 percent stake and the company's main lender with US$2.8 billion in outstanding loans and bonds. Big lenders such as SMFG and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group are often key investors in Japanese companies, giving them influence in board decisions - close ties that were welcomed by shareholders arriving for yesterday's meeting.
"The banks are there ... they will help in terms of capital," said shareholder Eiichi Suzuki, 60. "The company already has first-class technology, so now it's a matter of management."
Sasa said his mission was to "fix the damaged brand and win back trust as soon as possible."
Woodford, who has said he feared for his life during the early days of the scandal and has since rushed to print his book, "Terminated," on the affair, said it was a "mockery" for Olympus to claim it was making a new start. "It's why the world looks on and continues to think this world works in a completely different way, it's Alice in Wonderland," he said.
Woodford told the meeting that refusing to explain his sacking "will constitute clear grounds for this EGM (extra-ordinary general meeting) to be later canceled in court."
He later said he would discuss the issue with lawyers. "When they have lost nearly US$2 billion, is the new management going to accept that my dismissal was related to telling the truth and apologize or are they going to support this bunch of yes men and the ludicrous statements they have been making," he said.
At a sometimes rowdy extraordinary meeting in a Tokyo hotel, local institutional investors and Olympus' lenders and suppliers voted for a new management slate and approved five years' worth of restated company accounts.
Michael Woodford, the firm's British ex-CEO whose dismissal six months ago blew the lid off the accounting scandal, said he may seek to have the vote annulled as Olympus executives refused to say why he had been sacked for "gross misconduct." Woodford has begun legal action against his former employer in Britain.
While Olympus will hope the vote draws a line under a scandal that has wiped more than US$4 billion off its market value, Woodford and foreign investors, who own 25-30 percent of the firm, have sought a change in a deep-rooted culture of cross-shareholdings and cosy ties between banks and boardrooms.
Olympus' new president will be 30-year company veteran Hiroyuki Sasa, and new chairman is Yasuyuki Kimoto, a 63-year-old former executive from the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, owner of a 3.4 percent stake and the company's main lender with US$2.8 billion in outstanding loans and bonds. Big lenders such as SMFG and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group are often key investors in Japanese companies, giving them influence in board decisions - close ties that were welcomed by shareholders arriving for yesterday's meeting.
"The banks are there ... they will help in terms of capital," said shareholder Eiichi Suzuki, 60. "The company already has first-class technology, so now it's a matter of management."
Sasa said his mission was to "fix the damaged brand and win back trust as soon as possible."
Woodford, who has said he feared for his life during the early days of the scandal and has since rushed to print his book, "Terminated," on the affair, said it was a "mockery" for Olympus to claim it was making a new start. "It's why the world looks on and continues to think this world works in a completely different way, it's Alice in Wonderland," he said.
Woodford told the meeting that refusing to explain his sacking "will constitute clear grounds for this EGM (extra-ordinary general meeting) to be later canceled in court."
He later said he would discuss the issue with lawyers. "When they have lost nearly US$2 billion, is the new management going to accept that my dismissal was related to telling the truth and apologize or are they going to support this bunch of yes men and the ludicrous statements they have been making," he said.
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