Japan police move on Olympus as investors demand clean-out

TOKYO, (Reuters) – Japanese police have launched an  investigation into the financial scandal engulfing Olympus Corp, a newspaper said yesterday, as a major investor  joined increasing calls for a wholesale clean-out of the board.

Tokyo Metropolitan Police are investigating the firm’s  concealment of investment losses for possible violation of  financial laws, the Yomiuri newspaper said, adding that police  had asked Olympus for internal accounting documents and would  also question Olympus executives and related officials.

Police would work with markets watchdog the Securities and  Exchange Surveillance Commission, which is already  investigating, and with Tokyo prosecutors, and swap information  with the U.S. markets regulator and the FBI, the paper said.
A police spokesperson declined to comment.

Shares in the once-venerable maker of cameras and medical  equipment were untraded with a glut of sell orders more than two  hours after the market opened.

Olympus has lost three-quarters of its market  value since the scandal broke last month, when sacked chief  executive Michael Woodford went public with allegations the  company had improperly accounted for $1.5 billion in payments  related to mergers and acquisitions.

On Tuesday, Olympus ended weeks of denials and stunned  investors by admitting to hiding substantial investment losses  for decades and using the unusual payments to assist in the  cover-up.

Olympus said the revelation came to light through an  independent inquiry it had commissioned, and it blamed three  senior executives for the cover-up. Two of those executives were  former president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa and ex-vice president Hisashi  Mori. Both are still directors.

 WHOLESALE  CLEAN-OUT
Earlier yesterday, UK fund manager Baillie Gifford & Co,  which says it holds more than 4 percent of Olympus, called on  the firm to reinstate Woodford.
“What Olympus needs now is a thorough clean-up and we  believe Michael Woodford is the best man for the job,” Baillie  Gifford partner and its head of developed Asia equities, Elaine  Morrison, said in a statement.

“The current management of Olympus has been discredited by  its original response to Mr. Woodford’s allegations and its poor  communications with shareholders. We expect all directors or  employees linked to this wrongdoing to be dismissed and have  their ties to the company severed.”

The biggest foreign shareholder, Southeastern Asset  Management, which has about 5 percent of the firm, called for an  extraordinary meeting of shareholders to sweep out all the  remaining directors and its internal-audit board.

Some analysts echoed the call for the board to go but said  the firm’s only future might lie with an eventual buyout.

“The question is, almost whatever they do, the management is  going to be in question. They do need to get rid of the entire  board,” said Nicholas Smith, head of Japan equity strategy at  CLSA in Tokyo. But he added that bringing in new management  might well not suffice.

“The only way that you really change things in a way that is  acceptable to shareholders is that the company gets bought out.  And there’s no lack of possible buyers for it.”

M&A experts and market analysts said potential buyers for  Olympus, which has 70 percent of the global market for  gastro-intestinal endoscopes, would steer clear until the dust  settled.

“The camera business is not profitable as a whole, but  Olympus has an endoscope share that companies envy. Olympus’  debt load is what could stop them in their tracks,” said Fujio  Ando, senior managing director at Chibagin Asset Management.