Now, here is a news that will make cry the current Olympus shareholders (and me too). According to Reuters: “The payment is the largest M&A fee ever made…surpassing the previous record of $217 million involved in the 70 billion-euro takeover in 2007 of ABN AMRO by RFS Holdings, a vehicle set up by Royal Bank of Scotland and others.” and “The payment is equal to about a third of the acquisition price, jaw-dropping by normal standards where advisers usually take home about 1 percent or less of the transaction value for their M&A advisory services.”

Big Olympus shareholders made a lot of pressure on Olympus and as consequence “Olympus is setting up an ‘independent committee’, made up of lawyers and accountants, to investigate controversial acquisitions following claims made by its ousted CEO“. (Source: AP).

The story never ends. First Olympus “declined to identify the advisers and said it no longer knew of their whereabouts.“. But Reuters found the answer after one day only: “A former Wall Street banker of Japanese descent (veteran banker, Hajime ‘Jim’ Sagawa) has emerged as a key figure in the scandal engulfing Japanese blue-chip firm Olympus Corp, according to documents provided by the firm’s ex-CEO.”

And than we have another news: “Ousted Olympus Corp chief executive Michael Woodford is consulting police over whether he needs protection after passing “new information” to British fraud investigators about the Japanese company’s irregular payments to advisory firms.” (Source: Reuters).

I think what we are experiencing here will lead to a revolution inside Olympus. The market doesn’t trust the board anymore and that situation cannot last. On the positive side, this may be the BIG chance for Olympus to make a new start with new managers and new ideas. I think within the next couple of months we will see huge changes!

Our friends from Blog.livedoor managed to make a nice (of course fake) design of the GX1. Actually, I would love to see a camera like that for real! It is as sexy as the [shoplink 26385 ebay]Panasonic LC1[/shoplink] (but without viewfinder).

I am working to get some more specs and if we are lucky also some pictures of the REAL camera. As usual feel free to help me with the search by scanning the web for leaks. Drop me a message at 43rumors@gmail.com if you find something! Thanks!

Olympus Tokyo released a statement that can be read here: http://www.olympus-global.com/en/corc/ir/tes/pdf/nr111019.pdf . In short, Olympus says that while the facts MR. woodford are presenting are true “his report contains a large amount of material that is based on supposition and speculation and the company believes its content is at variance with the facts and open to misinterpretation’“. And: “Olympus confirmed that Woodford ‘remains a director of the company at this point in time”.

And here is the very serious part of the story: According to Amateur Photographer: “It could be several weeks before the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) decides whether or not to launch an official investigation into claims made by former Olympus CEO Michael Woodford. ”

And the very very very serious part is that Olympus shares value is still falling down and down and down: http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/7733:JP

First I want to say that I wish all our Thai readers and friends all the best to recover from the huge flood that hit their country. What’s coming next is just a technical informative report about the consequences of the flood on Nikon and Sony’s industry. As you see from the image on top (Source: Nationalmultimedia) the Nikon and Sony factories have been submerged by water. I talked with my sources about the current situation in the area and they told me there will be a production stop of at least one-two months! Nikon will probably delay the D800 announcement and Sony will delay the [shoplink 8454]Sony NEX-7[/shoplink] shipment. Also Amazon.com (Click here) is not taking any NEX-7 preorders anymore with the following reason: “Due to manufacturing concerns”. And the surprising thing is that they invite buyers to buy m43 cameras because “These sleek new cameras with lens versatility are available today” (again, click here to read).

What does it mean for m43? The NEX-7 gained a lot of attention from the press and photographers. If the NEX-7 will be delayed until January or even February than this could be a big chance for the upcoming Panasonic GX1 camera. It’s not “Schadensfreude” (malicious joy). It’s a matter of fact that if the GX1 will be similar to the NEX-7 than some of buyers may will get that camera instead of the Sony. Anyway, it’s up to Panasonic now to not disappoint us!

You can see three (very similar) Woodford interviews made at Financial Times (recommended!), Bloomberg (on youtube) and Channel4 (on their website). Mr Woodford said that he sent a report to the Serious Fraud Office in the UK. That’s going to be a tuff and long battle. Meanwhile the shares are losing another 8% today (Source: Bloomberg).

What you see on top is a screenshot taken a couple of minutes ago (14:00 London time). It shows the market reaction after the latest ex CEO Woddofrd statement at Bloomberg: “The whole board is contaminated and that company needs to be cleaned up. The whole board have had discussions and vote unanimously and no one asks anything. It’s just complete and utter obedience to Kikukawa.” And “There were $800 million in payments to buy companies making face cream and Tupperware. What the hell were we doing paying $800 million for these companies?”. And there is more coming from W.: “The eventual cost of the Transaction to Olympus is extremely significant and is as a result of a number of actions taken by management which are questionable and which give cause for concern. We were unable to confirm that there has been improper conduct, however, given the sums of money involved and some of the unusual decisions that have been made it cannot be ruled out.” The end of MR.W interview sounds a bit dramatic: “I was extremely concerned for my safety and well-being, left Japan on the first available flight to London via Hong Kong on Friday afternoon.”

What I didn’t know until today is that Woodford recommended Kikukawa and Mori resign from the board in an Oct. 11 letter!!! And only three days later Woodford was fired.

No matter who is right, the market believes in Mr. Woodford story. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Nomura Holdings Inc. cut Olympus’s ratings after the ouster. Something has to change inside Olympus, because many out there are not trusting them anymore!

Olympus shares dropped by 17,61% after the recent CEO dismissal (Soruce: Bloomberg).

Ex Olympus CEO Mr. Woodford has been interviewed by the Financial Times (Click here) and what you read is really giving you an idea of how bad things are ongoing at Olympus. Woodford checked the past acquisition strategy from Olympus and discovered that “large amounts of money seemed to have “disappeared” into the hands of poorly vetted outside financial advisers and investment vehicles.” and “a catalogue of calamitous errors and exceptionally poor judgment which … has resulted in the destruction of shareholder value of $1.3bn“.
And how did Olympus react? They told them to “to catch a bus to the airport“.

Editor’s note: I am not “for” nor “against” Mr Woodford. I am only reporting what he told about Olympus. And it is really not a good news!