MASSDEVICE ON CALL — Olympus Corp. (TYO:7733) launched a probe into the acquisition fee scandal that has seen its stock plunge by more than half.
Olympus Corp.’s $2.2 billion acquisition of Gyrus Group in 2008 raised eyebrows after the technology giant’s recently sacked CEO Michael Woodford revealed that the company paid $687 million to financial advisors mediating the deal.
The Japanese company appointed a third-party committee led by a former Japanese Supreme Court justice to investigate the fees, which set a new record for the largest M&A fee in history, trumping the previous record of $217 million for a deal worth more than $90 billion, Law360.com reported.
Typical M&A advisory fees run in the 1 percent to 5 percent range.
The payments are also under investigation by the FBI and the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office, Woodford told reporters last week.
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