By Isabel Reynolds
December 13, 2011 5:21 AM EST
Michael Woodford faces a tough battle to regain the top job at Japan's Olympus Corp <7733.T> and repair the damage of a $1.7 billion (1.1 billion pound) accounting fraud he helped uncover -- few Japanese shareholders or staff can be heard calling for his return.
Only 300 people have lent their names to an online campaign for his reinstatement as chief executive, set up last month by a former director, compared with the workforce of 40,000 people at the maker of cameras and medical equipment.
Even on an anonymous basis, barely 100 have added their voices to a rather muted cause, with some online comments citing doubts about his plans for the once-proud firm.
That is one reason for the awkward silence from Olympus's Japanese shareholders, who own about 70 percent of the firm, and lenders. Support from both would be essential for Woodford, 51, to resume his place as a member of a rare corporate species, foreign CEOs in Japan.
The biggest Japanese shareholders, such as leading insurers and banks, are normally reticent, but one senior banker familiar with their thinking said they had noted employees' lack of enthusiasm about a Woodford comeback and some were privately opposed to his return.
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"Many shareholders are sceptical about his ability to run the company after all these problems," said the banker, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.
"Even if Woodford did the right thing by revealing past wrongdoing at Olympus, that does not mean employees will welcome his return. That is why investors don't really like the idea of his coming back...," he added.
Another banker dismissed Woodford as a "dictator."
By contrast, some major foreign shareholders, such as UK-based fund manager Baillie Gifford, believe the straight-talking Englishman is the ideal man to turn the page on a sorry chapter in the 92-year-old history of the once well-respected firm.
Woodford, the only top executive willing to question Olympus's dubious accounting and suspicious deal-making at board level, has a reputation as a keen cost-cutter and, after 30 years working his way up the company, he knows where the fat is.
THOROUGH CLEAN-UP
"What Olympus needs now is a thorough clean-up and we believe Michael Woodford is the best man for the job," Baillie Gifford's head of developed Asia equities, Elaine Morrison, said in a statement on November 10 as Olympus shares were in full melt-down.
The freckle-faced Woodford shot to fame on October 14 when the Olympus board voted unanimously to sack him for what they described as his abrasive management style and a failure to understand Japanese culture.
Woodford immediately turned whistleblower, leaving Japan that day for Britain where he aired his concerns over some murky acquisition payments made by Olympus to obscure, offshore firms -- payments ultimately revealed to have been used in a massive scheme to cover up investment losses.
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