Ousted CEO, whistleblower and board reformer of Olympus, Michael Woodford, has given up his fight to seat a new board of directors at the troubled company. After unsuccessful meetings with institutional investors in the company, all of whom have lost billions in their investment holdings in the company, decided not to go along with Woodford's plan to seat a new board of directors and put himself in charge of the company. Woodford wanted to completely change the board and executive management after he discovered top executives at the company were responsible for hiding over $1.5 billion in investment losses for 13 years. Woodford, a Brit, had a tough time convincing the mostly Japenese investors and board members to go along with his plan.
So now Woodford has a new direction to pursue, he's going to sue Olympus for wrongful dismissal. Woodford, who was fired in Octob er 2011 after he started investigating accounting irregularities, had been working under a 4-year contract when he was fired by the board of directors at Olympus....you know, the same board he was trying to throw out.
Woodford had an uphill battle is trying to reform a company that he obviously still loved...at least he loved it enough to try to save it with his own plan. Once he was rejected, he had no choice but to sue the company for wrongful dismissal. I would think Olympus has a difficult defense of the charges as it would be hard to say, "we fired Woodford because his disclousre of our fraud hurt our stock price." I see a settlement happening here.
What is odd, is that institutional investors did not ally themselves with Woodford to "throw the bums out." Perhaps those investors have their own plan, but it won't include Michael Woodford.
