Olympus calls an extraordinary general meeting

Published:  7 Feb at 9 AM

Shareholders in Olympus will finally get the opportunity to grill the management on the accounting scandal that led to the stock price plummeting.An extraordinary general meeting (EGM) has been called on 20 April.

The company has admitted it has been hiding losses of $1.7bn (£1bn) for up to twenty years, reports the BBC. The scandal has caused the share price at Olympus to drop by almost 50 per cent since it became public knowledge in October last year.

Former CEO Michael Woodford, who made people aware of the accounting irregularities, will be attending the meeting.Mr Woodford has claimed he lost his job after was raising concerns about the irregular accounting practices of the company. He claims he had questioned a payment of $687m to financial advisers while the company was acquiring Gyrus.

While Olympus initially denied any problem, it later did admit to had been covering up the losses, and has since sued 19 executives that were involved in the cover-up. Olympus offices in Japan have also been raided as part of the investigation, and Mr Woodford believes the probe could lead to more information about the practices and how deep-rooted they may have been. The probe is still operating over three continents, so all information is still not available.