He had been only two weeks into the job when he exposed "one of the biggest and longest-running loss-hiding arrangements in Japanese corporate history", according to the Wall Street Journal.
[1] The US$2.2 billion deal in 2008 to acquire British medical equipment maker Gyrus Group, and the US$687 million paid to a middle-man were questioned.
As regulators and police on three continents begin to investigate and trace the movement of the money, there was speculation that organised crime was involved in the missing millions.
Olympus defended itself against allegations of impropriety, citing its Audit Board's view that "no dishonesty or illegality is found in the transaction itself, nor any breach of the obligation to good management or any systematic errors by the directors recognised."
[3] However, after he started agitating within the top Olympus executives about suspicious acquisitions, he was fired from his position as president and CEO on 14 October 2011; he remained a board director.
[4] Kikukawa, Tsuyoshi "Tom" (菊川剛), born on 27 February 1941, was educated at Keio University, where he graduated in Political Science, Dept.
He is credited with the company's strategy in digital photography – he fought for commitment by Olympus to enter the market in high-resolution photographic products.
[6] In recognition of the success in digital photography that he championed within the firm, Kikukawa was promoted to managing director in 1998 and president in April 2001.
[16] Sagawa spent six years at Paine Webber from 1991 until he was laid off in 1996, when he cofounded his own brokerage firm, Axes America, in 1997 according to securities filings.
[15] SEC filings from 2002 through 2005 show his firm's revenue never exceeded $445,000, all paid by offshore entities owned by the members of Axes.
According to former colleagues, he worked in tandem with Hajime Sagawa, and performed "portfolio reshuffling" for his Japanese corporate clients, and had long-standing relationship with Olympus.
[19] A former Paine Webber banker attested that Nakagawa and Sagawa were handlers for Olympus, and they made use of Bermuda-based funds valued at "hundreds of millions of dollars" to manage its balance sheet using Japanese accounting loopholes.
News Chef, a maker of microwave cookware, Altis and Humalabo were acquired by Olympus for ¥73.4 billion from Cayman Island-based funds between 2007 and 2010.
In 2003, Yokoo Akinobu (横尾 昭信), Nobumasa's older brother, was chief financial officer of ITX, an information technology group Olympus acquired in 2003.