The involvement of U.S. hedge fund ValueAct Capital Management in Olympus Corp.’s strategy and management is spurring the transformation of the world’s leading maker of endoscopes, Chief Executive Officer Yasuo Takeuchi said, boosting its stock price and profit.
Olympus’s shares have more than doubled since ValueAct persuaded Olympus to accept its director nominations in 2019 — a seldom seen victory for activism in Japan. That same year, Takeuchi took over the leadership, and ValueAct’s Rob Hale and two other external directors joined the board. They boosted the number of non-Japanese executives on the management team, cut jobs and sold off none-core assets while focusing its business on medical devices.
"We have committed that we will become a leading global med-tech company; that requires a lot of change, eventually the change in culture and any types of diversified opinions and viewpoints are very much welcome,” Takeuchi said in an interview. "I’m very glad that I have Robert Hale as a board member.”