Mark Derail
Contributor
Olympus warned of possible share delisting
BBC News - Olympus warned of possible share delisting
:sad:
BBC News - Olympus warned of possible share delisting
:sad:
Olympus warned of possible share delisting
- Thread starter Mark Derail
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Ahh, Olympus, how could you mess up so badly??? What a scandal!
What happened? The first hint of trouble came when a new President resigned after only two weeks on the job. He was asking for an explanation of an outrageously high commission paid to a mysterious Cayman Islands company to assist in an acquisition. The fee was about $700M of a $2.2 billion price, when such fees are typically 1%. It was a scam. Management was attempting to hide 20 year old losses in high risk financial trading. When the president resigned, he went public with his suspicions, and the whole thing came out. Now Olympus is cooperating with regulators, trying to weather the storm. The problem is they can't raise capital now, their stock is dropping like a rock and they can't be trusted by the major institutional investors. This is probably a death spiral.
Olympus faces delisting as scandal reaches $1.6 billion - Yahoo! News
The stock has already fallen 70%, and the president, a VP and the senior auditor resigned. It looks like the board will have to be replaced. They will probably have the stock de-listed January 15. I suspect Panasonic will buy them eventually, to acquire the patent portfolio, and the skilled people. The Japanese government will want to help resolve this, so they will help with any reasonable solution. My guess is they probably will sell out the current inventory through Christmas at current prices, but in January, there will probably be a fire sale. As a result of the scandal, now the future of the PEN products and new lenses is in doubt. If some new product has not been released, I doubt it ever will be (personal opinion, based on all this).
But because there is still value in the technical reputation and the patents, I'm sure the camera part of the company will survive as a unit of a rescue buyer, probably Panasonic (although they may not want to be tainted by the scandal, so that's not for certain). When Sony bought the photo assets of Minolta, the reasons were not scandal, just loss of market share below critical mass. The problem was/is the masses prefer Nikon and Canon for SLRs, as do the pro's. But Sony persevered and seems to be doing OK. Here is the Amazon Best Seller Camera List, showing the dominance of Nikon and Canon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/3017941/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_e_1_4_last
As a long time loyal Olympus camera user, I'm appalled. I am worried that my support for my current PEN setup and release of future products is dubious. I still favor the M4/3 products, but have already moved to Panasonic for lenses, which are superb, though expensive. The Panasonic GH-2 camera is amazingly good too. You can probably find some bargains on Olympus PEN cameras in the short term, but I don't think there is a long term.
What happened? The first hint of trouble came when a new President resigned after only two weeks on the job. He was asking for an explanation of an outrageously high commission paid to a mysterious Cayman Islands company to assist in an acquisition. The fee was about $700M of a $2.2 billion price, when such fees are typically 1%. It was a scam. Management was attempting to hide 20 year old losses in high risk financial trading. When the president resigned, he went public with his suspicions, and the whole thing came out. Now Olympus is cooperating with regulators, trying to weather the storm. The problem is they can't raise capital now, their stock is dropping like a rock and they can't be trusted by the major institutional investors. This is probably a death spiral.
Olympus faces delisting as scandal reaches $1.6 billion - Yahoo! News
The stock has already fallen 70%, and the president, a VP and the senior auditor resigned. It looks like the board will have to be replaced. They will probably have the stock de-listed January 15. I suspect Panasonic will buy them eventually, to acquire the patent portfolio, and the skilled people. The Japanese government will want to help resolve this, so they will help with any reasonable solution. My guess is they probably will sell out the current inventory through Christmas at current prices, but in January, there will probably be a fire sale. As a result of the scandal, now the future of the PEN products and new lenses is in doubt. If some new product has not been released, I doubt it ever will be (personal opinion, based on all this).
But because there is still value in the technical reputation and the patents, I'm sure the camera part of the company will survive as a unit of a rescue buyer, probably Panasonic (although they may not want to be tainted by the scandal, so that's not for certain). When Sony bought the photo assets of Minolta, the reasons were not scandal, just loss of market share below critical mass. The problem was/is the masses prefer Nikon and Canon for SLRs, as do the pro's. But Sony persevered and seems to be doing OK. Here is the Amazon Best Seller Camera List, showing the dominance of Nikon and Canon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/3017941/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_e_1_4_last
As a long time loyal Olympus camera user, I'm appalled. I am worried that my support for my current PEN setup and release of future products is dubious. I still favor the M4/3 products, but have already moved to Panasonic for lenses, which are superb, though expensive. The Panasonic GH-2 camera is amazingly good too. You can probably find some bargains on Olympus PEN cameras in the short term, but I don't think there is a long term.
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