It would be a tie-up between two giants: Diamond Weekly, a major Japanese business journal, is reporting [JP] on its website today that scandal-hit Olympus is about to ink a capital and business alliance deal with Sony. Olympus has been under fire for months, after it was revealed the company has covered up large losses for the past 20 years.
At some point, Olympus was in danger of getting de-listed at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, but it’s now on a 3-year “probation” that requires the company to improve governance. According to Diamond, Olympus’ top management has been consulting with various electronics companies but chose Sony as the best partner to help get it out of one the biggest corporate scandals in Japanese history.
The magazine says that Olympus is planning to hold a news conference as early this week to formally announce the deal. As a next step, the alliance is to get a green light at an extraordinary shareholders meeting in April.
Sony currently owns a 0.03% stake in Olympus. Neither company has reacted to Diamond’s report yet.
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