Panasonic, Samsung may tie up with Olympus

Japan’s Panasonic Corporation’s and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics have each decided to propose capital ties with disgraced medical equipment maker Olympus Corporation, the Mainichi newspaper reported on Wednesday. Other firms are already jostling to partner with Olympus, which has a 70 percent share of the global market for diagnostic endoscopes. Fujifilm Holdings Corporation has proposed an alliance while medical equipment maker Terumo Corp has said it wants to strengthen ties. Electronics giant Sony Corp is also interested, sources have said. Still another Japanese firm, which was not identified, is also soon set to make a proposal to Olympus, which is looking to shore up its finances after a $1.7 billion accounting fraud severely depleted its net assets, the newspaper said. A Panasonic spokesman said the company was checking the report and had no immediate comment. Samsung declined to comment. Olympus is unlikely to respond quickly to any approaches. Olympus’s president has said any decision on alliances should be made by a new management team, due to chosen at a shareholders’ meeting in April.