Briton Scales Heights of Olympus

[matsuki]

More details are emerging. It seems Omori was killed by his massive penis.

...or by acting like one

[2triky]

Foreign investors fear Japan banks may hijack Olympus board

By Sinead Cruise and Taro Fuse

LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) - Western investors in Japan's disgraced Olympus have accused its banks of trying to take control of the boardroom by stealth, amid growing signs that the firm's major creditors are considering installing their own appointees in the top jobs.

Foreign investors in the maker of cameras and medical equipment, engulfed by a $1.7 billion accounting fraud, have called for an entire renewal of the board, including outside talent unconnected to Olympus, its banks or major owners.

But they say they have been thwarted by Olympus's main banks which, in their powerful roles as both major creditors and shareholders, appear to be lining up a company insider and a senior banker to take over the reins.

The new chairman is expected to be from main lender Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (SMBC), a unit of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc, the Nikkei newspaper said on Tuesday, adding that executive officer Hiroyuki Sasa would be promoted to president, the most senior executive role at Olympus.

Read more

[Guest]

The foreign investors were screwed from the start of this mess, or at least first on the list of entities to be screwed.

[2triky]

Ousted Woodford launches Olympus lawsuit

By Kirstin Ridley

LONDON | Thu Mar 1, 2012

(Reuters) - Michael Woodford, the ousted Olympus chief executive who blew the whistle on one of Japan's most high-profile frauds, vowed he would hold his former employer to account as he kicked off his legal battle for wrongful dismissal in London on Thursday.

"I found wrongdoing, I raised that wrongdoing and for doing that I was dismissed ... in a way in which I'll never forget," he told a small throng of reporters gathered outside an employment tribunal building in east London.

"(I was) thrown out of my apartment and told to get the bus to the airport. We now know why ... I'm looking today to hold Olympus to account."

A 30-year Olympus (7733.T) veteran, Woodford was fired after questioning around $1.7 billion of dubious deals that top executives later admitted were fraudulent. To date, seven people have been arrested in Japan, including former chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa and former vice-president Hisashi Mori.

Thursday's proceedings were closed to reporters, but a five-day hearing is scheduled to begin on May 28 which will be open to the media and the public -- unless Woodford and the Japanese endoscope and camera maker reach a settlement first.

Read more

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

It seems Omori was killed by his massive penis.

That explains the Omori, I guess. Most Japanese are lucky if they're even nami.

[matsuki]

"I found wrongdoing, I raised that wrongdoing and for doing that I was dismissed ... in a way in which I'll never forget," he told a small throng of reporters gathered outside an employment tribunal building in east London.

"(I was) thrown out of my apartment and told to get the bus to the airport. We now know why ... I'm looking today to hold Olympus to account.

Wonder if Olympus will pay to put an end to this quickly or suffer the very public drama of getting owned in court.

[2triky]

:ninja2: Wonder if Olympus will pay to put an end to this quickly or suffer the very public drama of getting owned in court.

Yeah this is getting good. It has made for tv movie written all over it.

[Coligny]

Yeah this is getting good. It has made for tv movie written all over it.

Great we need material for new Matlock episodes...

[Mike Oxlong]

MICHAEL WOODFORD: Bad Corporate Culture Could Bring Down Japan

The British executive who exposed a $1.7 billion fraud at Olympus talked with us yesterday about the pitfalls of the Japanese corporate culture.

Michael Woodford fears there are more Olympus's out there.

Worse, he says Japan's culture of deference does not make him optimistic about the country's looming debt crisis.

SALARY MEN

Woodford was the first foreign salary man—someone who has devoted his career to a single corporation—to be promoted to president of a Japanese company.

"Being a salary man is a very important thing in Japan, like fidelity in a marriage," Woodford says. "You would think a salary man would be considered someone who wasn't very bold, but in Japan that is what they look for."

DEFERENCE AND OBEDIENCE

"Ive read about the former Goldman director in the press. I'm not going to say greed and wrongdoing is unique to japan. There are scandals in Europe, Siemens, Worldcom, Enron. Human nature is what human nature is. Individuals will act in a way that is wholly unacceptable. That's not exclusively Japanese," Woodford says.

"What is Japanese is the culture of deference and obedience. These qualities make hiding corrupt transactions much easier. You have people blindly following leadership. I saw even more of this after I made it public."

"At first the Japanese media didn't pick it up at all. They're very self-censoring," Woodford says. "It took an overwhelming barrage of me banging drums and repeating points in the media. In Alice In Wonderland Japan people think they can just ride these things out."

"Even after chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa resigned, the person who took over for him went before the press well into November and stood up and defended those two payments despite their being so transparently ludicrous. That would never happen in New York! People like you would be throwing cabbages."

NOT OPTIMISTIC

"If this scandal tells you anything about Japan, it doesn't make one optimistic that Japan will adapt to the challenges it faces," Woodford says. "Japan has terrible demographics... and a debt-to-GDP ratio that makes Greece look like it's in wonderful health. It's only sustainable because the Japanese buy government bonds."

via Yahoo! Finance

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

MICHAEL WOODFORD: Bad Corporate Culture Could Bring Down Japan

Could? Seems a couple of decades late for that...

[gaijinpunch]

Really, REALLY need a teeth-sucking emoticon.

[IparryU]

Really, REALLY need a teeth-sucking emoticon.

seriously... that and the "sodesune" body language one... one arm crossed with their other hand on their chin.... staring really hard at their feet whist they come up with a bullshit response... which would start off with teeth sucking

[matsuki]

Could? Seems a couple of decades late for that...

Indeed, "is bringing down Japan" would have been a better title.

Really, REALLY need a teeth-sucking emoticon.

Surprised noone has come up with it already

[Samurai_Jerk]

Olympus to go it alone

Scandal-tainted Olympus Corp <7733.T> has decided it will not seek alliances to beef up its capital for now and will try to rebuild on its own, the Mainichi newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The Japanese endoscope and camera maker, struggling to recover from a $1.7 billion accounting fraud, saw its equity ratio plunge to 4.6 percent as of end-March 2012 from 11 percent a year earlier.

[Taro Toporific]

... one arm crossed with their other hand on their chin.... staring really hard at their feet whist they come up with a bullshit response... which would start off with teeth sucking

Whistleblower Woodford warns of Japan's 'collective economic suicide'
---This is a Made in Japan problem. It’s cultural... It’s about the way the society functions.---
independent.co.uk | by Jim Armitage | 23 Nov. 2012
...Recent days have seen shocking numbers from Panasonic and Sony, whose debt has been downgraded to junk status.
Sharp is like a walking zombie, warning earlier this month that it may not be able to survive, and the country's "megabanks" have declared $6.7bn (£4.2bn) in losses on the value of their equity investments.
Meanwhile, the population is ageing faster than Dorian Gray's portrait. The birth rate is so low that the country's population shrinks each year, while the pensioners live ever longer. National debt as a proportion of GDP is running at 235 per cent – that's even worse than Greece.
This is the compelling narrative of the country told by Michael Woodford, the whistleblower who won The Independent's businessman of the year award last year for his brave exposure of a multibillion-dollar fraud at the heart of the Olympus cameras empire.
As the former chief told The Independent yesterday: "Japan is on an inevitable decline to oblivion."
For Mr Woodford, the situation is simple. For too many years and decades, the Japanese business community has been unhealthily cosy. Shareholders never question company bosses. Banks continue to lend to even the most sickly companies. The staggering, sick firms are never allowed to die.
More...
_______________________________

Is Japan really on the brink of a sudden downward spiral?
The Guardian.co.uk | 2012/nov/23
...With two lost decades under its belt, Tokyo is considered the capital of stasis, a place where nothing grows.
Hardly a week goes by without someone arguing that Japan's lack of growth, its ageing population, massive debts or its strong currency spell the end of a renaissance that propelled the country into the first rank during the 1970s.
To many people the situation remains benign. If you are happy with your domestic situation, job and income, an economy that is going nowhere does little to provoke the forces of change...more...

[legion]

I guess now Michael Woodford has time on his hands he's suddenly noticed all this.

[gaijinpunch]

Japan's Whistle Blower Extreme Speaks Out

Michael Woodford glances out of the floor-to-ceiling window of his multimillion-pound loft apartment, which looks out across the River Thames toward the City of London, the so-called Square Mile that is among the world's leading financial and commercial centers.


Laying bare: Ex-Olympus President and CEO Michael Woodford, and his book, "Exposure," which came out this week. ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW LEE

The 52-year-old Briton has effectively been jobless since being ousted for the part he played in Japan's own Enron scandal, when he blew the whistle last autumn on a 13-year, ¥130-billion accounting fraud at Olympus Corp., the global company he was running at the time.

[matsuki]

Do you believe that Japan is a true free-market economy?

I don't believe in communism but it would probably work better in Japan than anywhere else. Other people have said the same. I don't think it's a free market. It's a distorted market.

[IparryU]

http://www.japantoday.com/category/crim ... s-cover-up

Former exec gets suspended sentence over Olympus cover-up

A former brokerage executive who helped camera giant Olympus cover up years of huge financial losses was given a suspended jail sentence on Monday.

Tokyo District Court gave Akio Nakagawa, 64, an 18-month sentence, suspended for three years, and fined him 7 million yen for helping three former Olympus executives falsify financial statements.

The three also received suspended prison terms in July last year for their part in engineering a scheme to hide about $1.7 billion in losses that had accumulated since the 1990s, by using excessive consulting fees and buying unrelated companies.

“The cover-up was led by the Olympus side and Nakagawa played a subordinate role,” presiding judge Hiroaki Saito said.

“The defendant played an important role by managing a fund for Olympus’s cover-up, in return receiving expensive compensation,” the judge said, after rejecting a not guilty plea.

His role however “doesn’t constitute collusion and is limited to assistance”, Saito said.

[kurogane]

Sounds about right. After all he didn't pull a Horiemon and PO the wrong people .........

[legion]

Scaled the fucking heights

Rudolf Muench, a Hamburg-based general manager at Olympus's European headquarters in Germany, said KeyMed was only alerted to possible wrongdoing in 2014 when the "substantial value" of one of the pensions became known.

"KeyMed has a responsibility towards its stakeholders and therefore could not ignore the evidence that was presented," he said in an email to Reuters.

Woodford, 56, said his annual pension benefit rose to 993,000 pounds at the end of his 30-year Olympus career. This was converted into a capital sum of 64.5 million pounds and transferred to a Self Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), a UK government-approved scheme, with Olympus's approval in 2014.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympus-woodford-lawsuit-idUSKCN1182CS

Is there a downside to jobs for the boys?