Olympus has revealed its balance sheets just hours ahead of the deadline imposed by the Tokyo Stock Exchange, revealing a $1.1billion loss.
Speculation is now increasing that the company will need to merge or sell assets to repair its assets. Five years of corrected statements were revealed by the company, along with overdue first-half results.
Olympus faced delisting if it failed to make the December 14th deadline. The most recent restatement, which showed the figures for the end of June 2011 showed an 84 billion yen reduction in net assets, while the company added that at the end of September, its assets were just 46 billion yen, down from 225 billion yen at the end of March 2007.
Also confirmed was a net loss of 32.33 billion yen for the six months ending in September.
Takeover
Several companies have been rumoured to be interested in bidding for Olympus, including rivals Fujifilm and Hoya ever since the initial news that Michael Woodford, the British CEO of the firm, had been sacked after trying to investigate problems.
Olympus was down again on Wednesday, having lost about half its value since October.
Recently, Woodford has visited Japan to try and solve the problems, with several key figures at the company either resigning or being sacked as a result of the ongoing scandal. The entire board has committed to resigning over the scandal, but has said it wants to choose its own successors before departing.
Keep following for more on this story as it emerges.
