Olympus Paid Cayman Firms
Olympus Corp. paid a group of elusive Cayman Islands-based companies most of the nearly $1 billion it spent on three Japanese start-up firms, according to internal documents and Cayman Islands records. Those deals are now a focus of intense controversy engulfing the Japanese camera maker.
Separately, an internal Olympus letter has brought to light yet another deal that raised questions within the company: The purchase of a U.S-based orthopedic business in which Olympus issued a loan to an adviser on the deal and shortly thereafter wrote off the loan.
The payments Olympus made for the three start-ups were documented in a 2009 independent-panel report commissioned by the auditors on Olympus’s board, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal. In an apparent contradiction, however, that report described the largest shareholders of the three start-ups as “European funds.” Principals of the Cayman Islands companies couldn’t be determined.
