Woodford said by telephone from London that SMFG had told his representatives in Tokyo that the head of its banking unit, Takeshi Kunibe, would not agree to a meeting as the endoscope maker was "developing its recovery plans under the management reform committee and that (SMFG) did not want to interfere with that process."

Olympus on Thursday named Shiro Hiruta as the head of its reform committee, a former head of chemicals firm Asahi Kasei, which has close ties with SMFG.

(Additional reporting by Junko Fujita; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Joseph Radford)