Olympus in Final Stages of $623M Sony Investment Deal

Ever since their financial scandal, Olympus has been looking to bring on a big name investor to help get them out of trouble. Earlier this month that investor seemed to be Panasonic, but when that fell through everybody looked to the remaining three possible investors — Sony, Fujifilm and Terumo — to see if anybody was going to make the leap. According to Japanese business daily Nikkei, that investor is Sony.

The paper is claiming that Olympus is in the final stages of an investment deal that will run somewhere around 50-billion yen (or approximately $623M USD). The deal is identical to the one that was rumored between Olympus and Panasonic, and would make Sony the top shareholder in Olympus by giving them over 10% stake in the company.

Just like the rumored Olympus deal before it, there is a possibility that the investment will fall through. But according to Reuters, the pressure for Olympus to accept capital from another company in return for stock is only growing, making each consecutive deal more likely than the last.

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