Olympus admits financial manipulations

Three days before he was sacked from Olympus, previous President/CEO Michael Woodford had urged Chairman Kikukawa and Executive Vice President Mori to resign from the Olympus Board taking responsibility for what Woodford said where irregular payments and financial transactions that had cost the shareholders the sum of approximately US-$ 1.3 billion.

Olympus also announced that the standing corporate auditor of the company, Hideo Yamada, has expressed his intention to offer his resignation.

During a press conference in Tokyo, President/CEO Shuichi Takayama, who was appointed after Mr. Kikukawa’s departure, pointed out that he wasn’t aware of any financial manipulations until Mr. Mori told him about it yesterday. Olympus said it will continue its utmost effort to establish the truth of the case by providing all information to the Third Party Committee that is investigating the matter. While Olympus stock lossed another 27 percent on the Tokyo stock exchange following the Olympus Corporate News, the company might face serious consequences including delisting of its stock from the Tokyo stock exchange.