MASSDEVICE ON CALL — A post-scandal Olympus (PINK:OCPNY) is considering strategic alliances to boost investor confidence, having received at least 3 offers from potential partners.
Would-be allies include Terumo Corp. (TYO:4543), Fujifilm Holdings (TSE:4901) and Sony Corp. (TYO:6758), but new president Hiroyuki Sasa isn’t yet set on which direction to take the recovering endoscopic giant.
"My stance on forming partnerships is still neutral as we will first work on our business plans and then decide if we need partners," Sasa told Bloomberg.
Sasa ran the company’s medical device business prior to taking the corner office amid protest following the resignation of the entire board of directors at the company’s last shareholders’ meeting.
Olympus, which has a corner on 70% of the endoscopic camera market, was rocked by a $1.7 billion accounting scandal exposed by former CEO Michael Woodford, who was sacked mid-October 2011 after only 2 weeks on the job.
Woodford has since given up trying to regain control of the Japanese tech giant and has remade himself as something of a media celebrity, with plans to release books and take on speaking engagements.
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