Olympus: Chairman and President Kikukawa resigns and attacks Woodford: “he did not like Japan”

Before friends, now enemies. Kikukawa and Woodford.

Olmypus CEO Tsuyoshi Kikukawa “has stepped down due to a series of media reports on the company’s problems and a plunge in its share price“. (Source: Reuters). But the whole current Olympus board is still devoted to Kikukawa and I don’t think that will be enough to stop the critics. Today Olympus lost -7% at Nikkei (Source: Bloomberg).

A couple of days ago Kikukawa attacked ex-Ceo Woodford with an internal company memo. Electronista writes that: “In the memo, Kikukawa stated that Woodford’s recent actions were the result of nothing more than a failed power grab. Using Woodford’s initials, Kikukawa stated that, Director MCW was not satisfied unless he could control everything himself.” And the most surprising attack is that Woodford broke company management rules, and even “did not like Japan.”. If you want to read Olympus explanation of the story and arguments against Woodford read their official statement: http://www.olympus-global.com/en/corc/ir/tes/pdf/nr111019.pdf

P.S.: The New York Times posted some details about the mysterious Cayman company owners. And one more article form the NYT (Click here) about the acquisition story.