Olympus Sets Special Shareholders Meeting April 20, Says Agenda Undecided
Olympus Corp. President Shuichi Takayama
Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
Shuichi Takayama, president of Olympus Corp.
Shuichi Takayama, president of Olympus Corp. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
Olympus to Hold Special Shareholders Meeting April 20
Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
A pedestrian walks past a sign for Olympus Corp. displayed outside the company's showroom in Tokyo, Japan.
A pedestrian walks past a sign for Olympus Corp. displayed outside the company's showroom in Tokyo, Japan. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
Olympus Corp. (7733), the Japanese camera maker suing 19 current and former executives over accounting fraud, will hold an emergency shareholders meeting on April 20, it said yesterday in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
President Shuichi Takayama said last month a committee selected by current officials will nominate a new board by mid- March and investors would vote on new management in April. The agenda for the April 20 meeting hasn’t been decided, Yasutoshi Fujiwara, a spokesman for the Tokyo-based company, said yesterday by telephone.
Olympus, the world’s biggest maker of endoscopes, has lost about $4 billion of market value since Michael Woodford was fired as chief executive officer on Oct. 14 and blew the whistle on inflated takeover costs. The plunge is attracting investors including TPG Capital, the private-equity firm run by billionaire David Bonderman, and Fujifilm Holdings Corp.
“My intention is currently to exercise my right to attend” the April meeting, Woodford said today in a statement. “This will be the first formal opportunity for all of the company’s shareholders to question and hold its management to account” after the fraud crisis occurred.
No decision on a strategic alliance to boost capital will be made until a new board takes over, and no specific talks have been held on a partner, Takayama said last month.
TPG, Fujifilm
TPG is weighing whether to join with a strategic partner to invest as much as $1 billion in Olympus, a person familiar with the matter said on Jan. 14. While Fort Worth, Texas-based TPG has spoken to potential partners, it’s not clear whether they will pursue a deal, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
Fujifilm proposed a partnership and investment in Olympus, saying on Jan. 30 its X-ray and ultrasound technologies make it the best partner for the endoscope maker’s medical business. The two companies together would control about 85 percent of the global market for the tiny cameras doctors use to peer inside the body, according to Fujifilm Chief Executive Officer Shigetaka Komori.
Olympus was fined 10 million yen ($130,000) and told to submit annual reports on efforts to improve management, the stock exchange said Jan. 20. The exchange put the company on a watchlist for delisting last year after it admitted inflating fees to advisers on the $2.1 billion acquisition of Gyrus Group Plc in 2008 and overpaying for three Japanese companies.
The company is seeking as much as 3.6 billion yen in damages from executives including Takayama and ex-Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, and a combined 1 billion yen in damages from corporate auditors.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jae Hur in Tokyo at jhur1@bloomberg.net; Takashi Amano in Tokyo at tamano6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at ptighe@bloomberg.net
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