Pixiq

Olympus Corp has announced that its chairman and president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa has resigned from his role as company supremo. His appointed replacement is Shuichi Takayama, MD of the company.

British CEO, Michael Woodford was summarily dismissed on October 14th after he raised his concerns over the purchase of Gyrus by Olympus: company shares have lost half their value since his sacking.

Now, it has been emerged that two years ago, KPMG the auditors, resigned over the Gyrus accounts where $687 million were paid in fees when that company was purchased by Olympus. Apparently the auditors could not unravel the complex relationship between Gyrus and a Cayman Island entity, Axam.

 For those intrigued by corporate goings on read the Reuters piece by Taro Fuse and Nathan Layne who outline investigations by veteran Japanese journalist, Shigeo Abe publisher of Facta where the Woodford story was first broken. No punches are pulled for Facta labelled recent Olympus ads as a subtle way of "stuffing bills into the media's mouth."