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Shares in the company jumped about 20 percent to 869 yen on Tuesday, as traders speculated the company might avoid being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange, despite being engulfed in an accounting scandal.

Olympus, a maker of cameras and medical equipment, is under investigation by regulators, prosecutors and also organised-crime police. The scandal broke when CEO-turned-whistleblower Michael Woodford publicly questioned its accounts after being fired last month.

"I was invited to the board meeting on Friday by Olympus and welcome the opportunity of going to Japan," Woodford, a Briton, told Reuters in London on the eve of his departure for Tokyo.

The trip will be his first to Olympus headquarters since his sacking at a board meeting just over five weeks ago.

Woodford has been cast by two major foreign shareholders as the best man to lead a clean-up of the 92-year-old company, which has lost about 65 percent of its market value since he first went public with his concerns of improper accounting.

Goldman Sachs (GS.N) is now the second-biggest shareholder in Olympus, a public filing showed on Tuesday. The Wall Street bank has a 6.67 percent stake in the firm for clients' trading purposes, second in size to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (8306.T), which has 7.61 percent.

Other big players, such as Morgan Stanley (MS.N), appear to have been buying up the stock on behalf of clients, market sources said.

Olympus, which at first denied any wrongdoing, this month admitted to hiding investment losses from investors for two decades and to using some of $1.3 billion in unusual merger and acquisition payments to help in the cover-up.

It was not immediately clear whether the man who presided over Woodford's sacking, former chairman and president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, would also attend the board meeting. Kikukawa quit as chairman over the scandal last month but remains a director.

Speculation of organised-crime links has swirled around the Olympus scandal, but the firm said on Monday that a third-party panel it set up to investigate the matter had, so far, found no evidence that funds from its M&A deals went to organised crime syndicates or that "yakuza" gangsters were involved.

The panel's report is due in early December.

Woodford has cited unspecified security concerns for his decision to leave Japan in a hurry after he was sacked, but said on Monday he was now comfortable about returning and reiterated his willingness to "go back and run" the company.

"I'm reassured about the security. The Japanese authorities are aware and arrangements have been made that I'm satisfied with," the 31-year Olympus veteran said.

Woodford, who remains a director, would not discuss the agenda of the board meeting, saying only that it would be an opportunity to "ask my colleagues to do the best for Olympus."

During his visit this week, Woodford will meet Japanese police and other authorities, he has said.

SPECULATION OVER ORGANISED CRIME

The scandal at the once-proud firm has rekindled concerns about lax corporate governance in Japan and revived worries about links between companies and organised crime.

A unit from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's organised crime division has joined the investigation, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. But the source added it was premature to say if gangsters were involved.

Speculators who believe Olympus' core medical equipment business still has value have been betting that executives responsible for the scandal will bear the brunt of any punishment and that the company can escape with a fine.

Olympus has admitted to improperly accounting for M&A payments going back to 2006. A large share of these payments went to obscure Cayman Islands companies that have since closed, making it difficult to trace the money.

Tokyo prosecutors have already questioned former vice-president Hisashi Mori on a voluntary basis, Japanese media say, and are expected to soon question ex-president Kikukawa and internal auditor Hideo Yamada over their roles in the scandal.

Olympus' new president, Shuichi Takayama, has blamed the three for the cover-up, saying he would consider criminal complaints against them. Mori was sacked as an executive this month but, like Kikukawa, remains a director. It is also unclear whether Mori will attend this week's board meeting.

The Tokyo exchange has placed Olympus on a watch-list as a possible prelude to delisting. If the firm misses a December 14 deadline for filing its financial statements for the six months to September, it will be automatically delisted.

Even if Olympus meets the deadline, the bourse can still delist the stock depending on the scale of its past financial misstatements or if the firm is found to have done business with organised crime syndicates.

(Additional reporting by Kirstin Ridley in London and Lisa Twaronite and Junko Fujita in Tokyo; Editing by Linda Sieg and Mark Bendeich)

The world's largest technology company by sales also gave a modest earnings forecast for fiscal 2012, setting a low bar for new CEO Meg Whitman in what she called a "reset and rebuilding year."

Better-than-expected quarterly results suggested the storied Silicon Valley company was finding its feet after a tumultuous year, but executives said its turnaround effort will entail major -- and as yet unquantified -- investments in research and development and in expanding personnel and internal systems.

Whitman also warned of serious challenges to growth from a worsening external environment, including dwindling demand from Europe. Flooding in Thailand has choked off the supply of hard drives, driving up prices for the crucial components in personal computers.

"We have got some HP-specific challenges," Whitman said in an interview. "We have got to improve execution, we have got to turn our services business, we have got to manage down our IPG channel (imaging and printing group) inventory, we have got to turn around China."

The former eBay Inc CEO, who took over at HP only in September, also said a slow global economy, and Europe in particular, was another challenge along with flooding in Thailand.

"This is going to be disruptive for the industry in Q1 and Q2," she said, adding the full impact of the flooding was still unclear.

HITTING 'RESET'

The results capped a turbulent year for HP marked by strategy flip-flops, executive churn and the ouster of former CEO Leo Apotheker after less than a year in the top job.

Now, with veteran Silicon Valley hand Whitman running things, investors hope HP will move past the internal upheaval and stabilize its business.

Whitman said 2011 provided too many distractions, while an announced decision to consider a sale of the personal systems group hurt HP's business by driving off potential buyers, particularly in China.

"We need to reduce the drama here," she told analysts on a conference call, with a slight chuckle. "There was a lot of drama in 2011."

The past year saw HP consistently miss its own financial forecast, acquire British software company Autonomy for over $11 billion in a move widely panned by investors, and spook Wall Street by floating the possibility of a spin-off of the huge personal computer division.

Whitman said HP will not be making any more large acquisitions, but might still do smaller deals -- potentially in the software sector -- below $500 million.

"There may be two or three acquisitions that we want to take a look at in the software space," she said.

The company also plans to increase its research and development spending in 2012 following a 10 percent rise in the group's budget last fiscal year. It also plans to add sales personnel, particularly to manage big customers.

"I would describe the numbers as stabilization," said Michael Yoshikami, CEO of YCMNET Advisors. "This is the first quarter in a long time there has not been a drastic change or announcement.

"It's a classic case of no bad news is good news."

MODEST OUTLOOK

The company said non-GAAP net revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter inched up 1 percent to $32.3 billion. Analysts had forecast revenue of $32.05 billion on average, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Excluding items, HP earned $1.17 a share, better than the average analyst estimate of $1.13 a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For fiscal 2012, HP is projecting earnings of at least $4 per share, excluding items. Wall Street analysts on average expect the company to earn $4.54 for the full year, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"They set a goal they could achieve, they wanted to put a number out there that they could hit," said Michael Holt, an analyst with Morningstar. "Meg Whitman is bringing a focus to operating the business which has been lacking."

Sales from HP's personal systems group, encompassing PCs, slipped 2 percent, while revenue from its bread-and-better printing group declined 10 percent, hurt by weak consumer demand. HP is looking to reduce its channel inventory in the printing unit.

The company's shares slid lower to around $26.40 after initially rising on the earnings report after-hours. They shed more than 4 percent in the regular session to close at $26.86 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta and Edwin Chan; editing by Gary Hill and Andre Grenon)

The committee's co-chairs will issue a statement later Monday, declaring the bipartisan committee was unable to reach a deficit-reduction deal, according to sources, and had failed to bridge deep divides over taxes and spending.

The developments add another degree of uncertainty to a market besieged by global headwinds, although the failure isn't expected to affect the country's credit rating.

In Europe, the FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index fell 2.4 percent after Moody's said a recent rise in interest rates on French government debt and weaker economic growth prospects could be negative for the country's credit rating.

Also, Spanish prime minister-elect Mariano Rajoy was under pressure to details his policies to overcome a severe economic crisis after his center-right party won the country's biggest election victory in 30 years.

Adding to market jitters, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan warned the global economy was in a grim state.

"It isn't just the failure of the committee that's causing investors to shun risk around the world, although I thought we would get some kind of last-minute deal," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

"Between the continued concerns about Europe, especially France now, and the comments out of China, there are just so many ongoing problems."

Last week, equities suffered their worst week in two months on concerns about debt problems both domestically and in Europe.

S&P 500 futures fell 18.6 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures lost 160 points and Nasdaq 100 futures sank 22.25 points.

Trading volume is expected to be light this week due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. The light action could add to market volatility.

The S&P failed to rise above 1,225 on Friday after a drop below it on Thursday triggered massive selling, and it is now strengthening as technical resistance. Last week, the Dow fell 2.9 percent, the S&P dropped 3.8 percent, and the Nasdaq lost 4 percent.

Pharmasset Inc (VRUS.O) surged 86 percent to $135 in premarket trading after Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O) agreed to buy the company for $11 billion in cash. Gilead fell 3.4 percent to $38.53 before the bell.

Also in merger news, Alleghany Corp (Y.N) will buy Transatlantic Holdings Inc (TRH.N) for about $3.4 billion, or $59.79 per share. Transatlantic closed Friday at $54.43.

October existing home sales will be released at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT) and are seen falling modestly to 4.8 million units from 4.91 million in the previous month.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)