Five years ago, Olympus Corp. was caught up in the oddest of corporate scandals. Its then-CEO, Michael Woodford, uncovered an accounting scandal at the company that went undetected for years, besmirching the name of a once-proud Japanese maker of digital cameras and medical equipment.
The challenge of getting the company out of the penalty box, restoring investors¡¯ trust and expanding again has fallen to Hiroyuki Sasa, who took over as CEO in 2012. ¡°It¡¯s an endless effort,¡± Sasa said in an interview at the company¡¯s Tokyo headquarters.
Though the company¡¯s stock is priced about eight times higher than the lows of 2011, Sasa has his work cut out for him. Governments are curbing health-care expenditure and competition is rising. Meanwhile, some of the company¡¯s medical devices have drawn scrutiny from U.S. regulators regarding an issue of bacterial contamination, and it faces lawsuits from patients.
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