Losses on securities investments at the core of a scandal rocking Japan’s Olympus Corp may have once exceeded US$1 billion, the Nikkei Shimbun said yesterday, as the firm’s share price plunged again on doubts about its future.
Olympus admitted on Tuesday that it used merger and acquisition deals to hide losses dating back two decades, a revelation that followed a public campaign by former chief executive Michael Woodford to get the 92-year-old maker of endoscopes and cameras to explain a series of mysterious deals.
“If other Japanese companies are also viewed with suspicion due to the Olympus affair, they could have trouble raising funds,” said a Nikkei editorial.
It said Japan’s financial watchdogs and prosecutors should stay on top of the case and cooperate with overseas authorities who are also probing it.
Olympus declined to comment on the Nikkei report, which quoted sources close to the matter.
Olympus president Shuichi Takayama on Tuesday blamed former president and chairman
Tsuyoshi Kikukawa who quit both positions on Oct. 26, Olympus vice-president Hisashi Mori and internal auditor Hideo Yamada for the cover-up that used funds related to mergers and acquisition deals, saying he was considering filing a criminal complaint against them.
However, Takayama declined to detail how the losses had occurred or the amounts involved before an external panel completes an investigation.
Former Olympus president Toshiro Shimoyama, who served from 1984 to 1993, told the Nikkei in an interview that he had no memory of any loss-hiding scheme and was not closely involved with finance at the time.
Olympus’ share price plunged 20.4 percent to ￥584 yesterday, falling by its daily trading limit of ￥150. Shares also fell to their limit on Tuesday when Olympus admitted to the cover up. Olympus shares have lost more than 75 percent of their value, of US$6 billion, since Oct. 14, the day the company fired Woodford.
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