Rob Trek Forum

Olympus signed an MOU with JIP, they did not sell - this is an important detail...

I started a series of posts on another forum "Its day X and my EM1 II still works...."

We living in interesting times. For example, we never saw 195 Countries go in lockdown for plus two months. Nobody really knows what the financial impact of this lockdown will be. We saw the camera sales figures did not do well in 2019 and 2020 is looking even worse... This calls for brave and urgent action...

We have been watching negative and in many cases mean forum discussions regarding M43 for years. I wrote several articles about social media and the marketing battlefield playing out on social media... I also wrote a deep-dive study on Olympus in reaction to all the negativity we see on M43...

Here is what we have today:

- Olympus had a reporting issue 12 years ago and from then they in a restructuring/turn around/ rebuild phase
- The company Olympus is doing well (that is medical plus all its other businesses)
- The imaging business had many challenges to win simultaneously over the past 5 years...
- Rapidly changing market
- Moving their factory from China to Vietnam
- More players entering the mirrorless market
- Many more
- Olympus signed an MOU with JIP - it's really important you go read the announcements...
- They DID NOT sell

Here is what could be happening:

- Olympus knew its critical to get outside help to restructure and re-priorities the final phase restructuring the imaging business
- Olympus always said the imaging business is important to them for their medical business
- Olympus also said they will continue developing / selling / servicing their imaging products
- This is a drastic step they took - keep in mind they have been at it for the past 10 years
- I know the doomers like to see the worst - but studying what they did on the MKIII releases - genius...

I think one should keep in mind that we have is an active marketing battle taking place on social media. It's really important to stand back and see it for what it is... Its when you realize this and you learn how to follow this battle that it becomes really interesting...

Hope this helps

Siegfried

Well said Siegfried.

MOU here-https://www.olympus-global.com/ir/data/ ... r00013.pdf Olympus Corporation and Japan Industrial Partners Inc. Memorandum of understanding.

1 Carve out a new Company - ‘NewCo’
2 Transfer shares to a Fund managed by JIP
3 Transaction by Sept. 30th 2020
4 Operating the business with JIP, the clue may be in the name, Partners.
5 Corporate structure may become more compact, efficient and agile
6 Adding support from JIP for NewCo
7 Will utilise the innovative technology and unique product developed within Olympus
8 New Co will succeed am maintain the research and development and manufacturing functions globally as reformed
9 Aim to implement structural reforms to the existing Imaging business to be prior to the closing of the transaction more profitable and sustainable.
10 The Memorandum doesn’t really give away too much.

From the above is this arrangement not a partnering relationship between Olympus and JIP to form a spin-off joint company, (NewCo), set up and managed by JIP but with Olympus input. Typically in any large Global conglomerate, financial accounts are consolidated and a charge is made on subsidiary companies, including costs of running business jets! Given the camera consumer market, charges like this may be one reason why the Imaging business, a small business unit in Olympus, may be burdened with excessive overhead costs compared to its competitors. It makes sense to split it off and is another reason why the Olympus camera products are not going out of business, any time soon.

My pennies worth.