HOT UPDATE: Olympus admits mistakes. Woodford prepared to return?

Olympus Japan itself released an extraordinary statement issued Tuesday (Click here to download the japanese pdf) saying that “the panel found that the money for mergers had in fact been used to mask heavy losses on investments racked up since about 1990.”

And the New York Times (Click here) really gives us a terrible news: “That revelation alone could make this one of the biggest accounting fraud cases in corporate history. It is also a spectacular turn of events amid a boardroom battle that has pitted Olympus’s former British chief executive turned whistle-blower, Michael C. Woodford, against an otherwise all-Japanese company board.”.

The first consequences of that news is that Hisashi Mori (executive vice president) had been fired and Hideo Yamada offered his resignation. According to Bloomberg the company may take legal action against the three (including ex Ceo Kikukawa).

And the second-biggest overseas investor “Harris” says that “Woodford should return to run the company and conduct the house cleaning“.