Will Olympia host the bull after Paris '24?

Timing vis-a-vis the Olympic Games is coincidental at best, yet there was a rally from 13c to 35c months after Beijing '08 coinciding with the massive worldwide economic 'recovery' in 09, massive rallies roughly 2 years before & after London '12, the latter sending the price up from 12c to 22c by Sep '14, a massive surge from a 7c low months after Rio '16 that tripled its price by Mar '17[I remember the peak day well, furiously selling the too-early entry @15c in '15 as it pushed past 17c & briefly breached 20c on vapid rumours it was selling Jupiter Securities, crystallizing as a fact on my birthday 6 months later, yet failing to reach 21c ever since] & finally rising from a brief 7.5c low in Nov '20 to crest @ 15c on 21 Jun '21, a year after the original schedule of the postponed Tokyo Olympics.

On hindsight the last rally was likely engineered to allow casino king KT Lim to cut his losses on his massively overpriced purchase of almost $2 per share(!) in early 2004 as he no longer appeared in the Top 20 holder list since then after holding 14,513,765 shares or 1.42% for 17 years. Coincidentally, his family's Genting HK also went belly-up around the same time, a victim of the pandemic.

However, a few prominent holders in the Top 20 seem to be holding firm for at least the last 7 years, collectively keeping 30-45 mil shares out of the free-float count. Interestingly, MP Factors has increased its holding since Oct '07 from 0.65% to 3.38% or 34.604 mil shares.

As can be seen in the charts above, Olympia has historically had a spotty performance at best, with a streak of 18 consecutive quarters of losses recently averaging about (0.5c) per share & this looks unlikely to change soon. Net debt has increased from M$91.5 to M$109.3 mil in the last 2 years[cash/debt @ 17% vs 38% in '22] since the controlling shareholding Yap family made a ludicrously mean-spirited 8c takeover offer, though debt/equity has actually improved from 0.62 to 0.40 over the last decade. 

Total assets have shrunk almost 30% from M$769 mil to M$550 mil in the last 8 years, accompanied by a shrinkage of cash & equivalents by over half to M$23.7 mil from M$56.4 mil yet I'm not unduly worried[having made another bundle buying @ 11c & re-selling @ 14c in Jun '21, I retained too many shares & had to average down to bring my shareholding back up to the '15 level]. Now the few thousands in profits will have to pay me to wait for the latest accumulation to bear fruit, hopefully a year or sooner after Paris '24 if precedents can be relied upon!

Also, a floor is likely to have been put under the stock as the major holder aforementioned has increased their stake from 332 mil to 541 mil shares under the takeover offer of '22[ & up to 544 mil as of Jun 20], despite auditors issuing a 'going concern' opinion. My current strategy, since holdings are still well below the 100,000 mark, is to collect whenever the matching price is likely to be 7.5c or lower to continuously lower my holding cost, currently at around 9.3c in one account & 10.3c in another, the former being almost triple the size of the latter.

Technically, the time is ripe from '24-'25 for another big rally as 3-4 years between large bullish moves seems to be the norm, with a double/quasi-double bottom already in place. With its lottery business in Sabah so-so & property being a drag, only a prospective sale of its M$218 mil of 'land held for development' & its M$280 mil office tower jewel Menara Olympia not far from KL's Golden Triangle is likely to be catalysts for a rise to the first resistance @ 10c & the next @ 14-15c.

I remain unafraid of insolvency due to its cash-rich sister company Dutaland showing readiness to loan Olympia any liquidity it needs.  The company has definitely seen worse with cumulative losses of $523 mil from '03 -'06 before a reversal of that number in '07 which saw the price soar from 48c in May to a peak of 117c in Jun. However an 8c EPS in '08 did not help the price, no doubt dragged down by damaged sentiment during that infamous year when the world's financial system almost collapsed, falling from a 69c high on Jan 11th '08 to a Dec '08-Mar '09 double-bottom @ 14c, which I set my sights on as the ultimate target  by next year.