Genting posts lower Q1 net profit of RM439mil

PETALING JAYA: Genting Bhd, Asia's biggest casino operator, said net profit for the first quarter ended March 31 fell 33% to RM439.4mil despite a 7% rise in revenue to RM2.16bil.
The lower profit was due to less income from its British gaming operations, while profit in the previous corresponding period was boosted by a RM510mil one-off gain from the disposal of shares in its subsidiaries.
“Higher revenue was recorded at the group's non-leisure divisions, particularly the plantation division,'' Genting said in a statement yesterday.
Plantation revenue, via 53.8%-owned Asiatic Development Bhd, amounted to RM249.5mil, or 93% higher versus RM129mil a year earlier.
Genting said the plantation company achieved a higher crude palm oil selling price of RM3,403 per tonne in the January–March period against RM1,927 per tonne a year earlier.
An aerial view of Genting Highlands Resort
Asiatic released its first-quarter results on Wednesday.
Revenue at Genting's core leisure and hospitality division slipped 2% to RM1.44bil despite higher sales at Resorts World Bhd, operator of Genting Highlands Resort.
“The British gaming operations under Genting International Plc were affected by lower business volume, higher net bad debts written off and higher gaming duties,'' it said.
The group's power division delivered a 14% increase in sales to RM408mil, but Genting said rising coal prices “would likely affect” its operations in China.
It expects “satisfactory” group performance for the rest of the year.
In a separate announcement, 30.3%-owned Landmarks Bhd said its first-quarter net profit slumped to RM4.18mil against RM15.89mil a year earlier following the disposal of assets.
The group expects to post a lower profit for the year ending Dec 31 (FY08) compared with FY07, but said it “believes that Treasure Bay Bintan will contribute a significant portion of the group's profit going forward as we embark on our development programme.''
Landmarks has announced plans to develop resorts, condominiums, villas and entertainment facilities that may include gaming activities on 333ha. The project, called Treasure Bay, is on Pulau Bintan in Indonesia.

Is Right Issue Worth subscribing for YUNKONG ?

A little background of Yung Kong :-

Yung Kong Galvanising Industries Berhad engages in the manufacture and sale of galvanized and coated steel products in Malaysia. The company, through its subsidiaries, markets and sells flat steel products, and other building and construction materials; and manufactures and sells furniture hardware and accessories. Yung Kong Galvanising Industries was founded in 1977 and is headquartered in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Yung Kong Galvanising Industries Bhd reported earnings results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2008. The company has registered first quarter pre-tax profit of MYR 6.611 million ($2.1 million), an improvement of 381.9% year-on-year thanks to the surge in steel prices. The steelmaker's revenue rose 23.3% to MYR 121.378 million for the three months ended 31 March 2008 against MYR 98.451 million for the previous corresponding period. Earnings per share rose to 6.77 sen from 1.13 sen previously.

Yeah, what was mentioned by forumer is true, why raising fund ? for a continue sound of business plan ? or paying debt ? Is the below subcription of right issue worth while ?

Renounceable rights issue of 65,178,300 Rights Shares together with 65,178,300free detachable Warrants at an issue price of RM0.50 per Rights Share (of which the first call of RM0.35 is payable in cash on application and the second callof RM0.15 is capitalised from the company’s revaluation reserve account andretained profit account) on the basis of one (1) Rights Share together with one(1) free detachable Warrant for every two (2) existing Shares (“Rights Issue with Warrants”) held at the Entitlement Date.

Lets mathematically the above by below example :-

1) Your holding of 2000 shares @ closing price of 0.64 sen = 640 X 2 = RM1280

2) Get to subscribe the right issue, you pay RM350 + RM10 (stamp duty) = RM360

3) Percentage of discount based on closing price = (0.64 - 0.35)/0.64 X 100 = 45%

4) Plus a free warrant (wonder how much is the listing price when it get listed, just assume this is bonus, since it is given free)

Looks pretty impressive to subscribe with a discount of 45% plus a free warrant but all this subject to the following :-

5) Your eventual holding is 3000 shares, that bring you an overall average price of = (1280 + 360)/3000 = 0.55sen

6) Ex-right will bring the share price adjusted to 0.55sen, if the closing is still 0.64 on 9/6/2008. Do you think at 0.55sen is still a good valuation ?

7) With additional new shares, the paid up capital increases, diluted and liquitity increases as well, these in turn will affect the EPS.

8) Now come to a more concern area, how overwelming is the subscription as mentioned by DoReMe ? If fully subscribed or a high subscription of the rights issue then YK happy and pocket the raised fund and everything stay normal...what if the underwriter has a,

9) undersubscribe shares, then a big problem arise here. They may then left no choice but to try sell the surplus new shares in the market, this will lead to a effective depression of the share price.

With the above you make the judgement. Personally, i think YUNKONG has a healthly BS and profit surge. Is normal for one to raise fund for company expansion unless a bad management has bad intention behind it but this company has been around for 30 years so i doubt it. Therefore should not be a problem subscribing the right issue with a 45% discount but anything can happen. Again this does not represent a BUY, act at you own risk. Bye, happy trading.

Resorts World Q1 profit rises 18% to RM395mil

PETALING JAYA: Resorts World Bhd registered an 18% growth in pre-tax profit to RM395.39mil for its first quarter ended March 31, compared with RM335.42mil in the previous corresponding period.
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday, Resorts said its revenue increased 3% to RM1.09bil from RM1.06bil earlier, underpinned by improved performance in its leisure and hospitality segments, which saw higher volume of business.
Its earnings per share came in at 5.09 sen against 4.27 sen a year ago.
Meanwhile, Resorts' sister company Asiatic Development Bhd saw its pre-tax profit surge over 120% to RM143.2mil for the first quarter ended March 31 against RM64.26mil in the previous corresponding quarter.
Its revenue jumped 83% to RM273.06mil against RM149.28mil previously. Its earnings per share more than doubled to 15.1 sen against 6.18 sen a year ago.
Asiatic attributed its improved performance to higher palm products selling prices along with a 7% increase in fresh fruit bunch production.

Public Bank profit in Vietnam soars

VIENTIANE: Public Bank Bhd recorded a net profit of US$3mil for the financial year just ended, a 67% increase from the previous year's US$1.8 million.
Country head Zulkiflee Abdullah attributed the better performance to the fast growing economy of Laos which registered an annual average income per capita growth of 7.6%.
“In the last five years we have registered a growth in profit of between 60% and 80% yearly,” he told Bernama yesterday. – Bernama

The story of thief

Once upon a time, there was a man who steals for living.
One day, his son told him: "Daddy, I want to be like you and steal things for living, please teach me for that!"

This man watching his son's appearance and personality, if not thought of stealing, the child’s future may be starved to death, so he agreed.

One night, this man brings his son to a big house, dug a hole on the wall and climbed into the big house. They found a store with valuable things inside, this man persuaded his son to go inside and immediately locks his son inside the store and went to the courtyard screaming at the same time. This act awakened the family, then, this man quickly slipped out through the same hole that they both climbed in.

The family was aware that the thief has escaped himself when the family saw the hole of the wall.

So, the owner decided to check what had gone missing and told the servant to conduct a check in the store.

Meanwhile, the thief's son is overly panicky and curses his father for his unexpected act that causes him to be stranded in the store room. While the servant approaching the store room with a candle, this let the son no choice but to hide himself behind the door.

The moment the servant opened the door, the thief's son come out from behind and blown off the candle and ran out as fast as possible.

The family begins to chase after the thief’s son.

Over the chasing, the thief’s son saw a pond and lighted up an idea where he picked up a stone and thrown into the pond. That deceives the family from mistaken that the thief has jumped into the pond, so the family round the pond and looking for the "body" but this thief’s son is on the safe journey home.

The thief’s son was very mad with his father and would thought of confronting his father but while stepping into the house, his father whispered “son, tell me how did you escape ?”.

After hearing the story of his son, the thief said: "Kid, you have learned how to steal now."

What is the moral of the story that bring a “AHA” to you in term of trading stock ??

Received Final Dividend RM0.075 & Special Dividend RM0.225 from CARLSBERG

Received another dividend from Carlsberg totalling to 30sen. This will bring to a total of 9% dividend yielding base on current price. It is indeed a very high DY when compare to an ordinary FD rate. Still sourcing for more dividend play......till then happy trading.

Received 13sen Dividend from GUINNESS

Received the interim 13sen dividend from GUINNESS (3255). Expecting the next dividend to be declared in November, should be around 30sen final dividend. Anticipating for that. Bye.

A Piece of Advise from elmo1988

in stock market, there is no right or wrong. klse like any marketplace is a mixture of players. rich, the poor, the good, the bad and the ugly. you name it it's there. so a wiseman may think it's the right thing to do but the mad fellas in the market plays a different game. the final winner is the majority's game. not the wise. not the ethicals, everything is unpredictable. i call it my lucky star. or you your lady luck. don't trust anyone here or anywhere. read the biz news. keep up with the world and market news. they are the forces that drives the market. we all are jokers, trying to cari makan here and there. i invest. i don't gamble. i hope you too. chart your game... never, yes, NEVR run out of cash.
you may need that last arrow when the market crashes. that's your (my) golden arrow! good luck...

MAY MARKET COMMENTARY 15 May 2008

Article from a friend. May 2008 Market Commentary for your information. Of cource don't trust 100%.

“Where is that recession?”
The U.S. Federal Reserve has in total made 350 basis points rate cuts since last September to a current Fed rate level of 2% to date. . The Federal Reserve has indicated a stop to the rate cuts for now to prevent a further weakening of the US dollar, which further fuels inflation. The question is now: has the U.S. economy improved?

In late April, the Bureau of Economic Analysis in the U.S. reported the Q1 2008 GDP growth remains at 0.6%, unchanged from the Q4 2007 report, although many economists expected the Q1 GDP to be negative. This is suggesting that the U.S. economy is not ‘falling off the cliff’. However, it is quite obvious that the U.S. housing sector is indeed in recession as residential fixed investment dropped by 26.7%, which made an overall reduction to the U.S. GDP by 1.23 percentage points. In short, GDP growth minus housing is an acceptable 1.8%, which illustrates the strength of the economy.

In our opinion, to take the massive hits from both housing and the credit markets and to be still expanding is quite impressive. Economists are now expecting the 2nd quarter growth to be positive as taxpayers will begin receiving money from the Economic Stimulus Package about $150 billion in total in May. Furthermore, should Mr. Ben Bernake take steps today to strengthen the dollar, lower energy and food prices will help the economy and bring more positive numbers back into their economy.

Asian markets have also been positive as investors responded to a slew of more positive U.S. economic data recently. It is most interesting to note that investors know that the credit crunch problem has not been resolved yet… it's just that optimism has outperformed pessimism lately and sentiments seem to be turning more positive. As for China, the largest engine of growth in the Asian region, cut the stock trading transaction tax to 0.1% from 0.3% on April 25th. This is in line with their efforts to increase acitvity in their stock markets, a long-awaited move that rolls back the so-called stamp tax to the rate it was a year ago when Beijing raised it to cool the overheated market. More in initiatives to pump liquidity back into the Chinese markets are expected to be revealed after 2nd half of 2008.Worries about inflation have been keeping the Chinese Central Bank on its toes. Analysts said the central bank would likely implement more tightening measures to curb inflation which they have been doing many times over the last year such as massive crackdown on merchants or producers who are “fixing prices”, announcing sharp new limits on bank lending, and raising interest rates. Domestic inflation was most recently measured over 8% in Feb 2008, the highest annualized rate since 1995. The real culprit in China is the elevated price of food, which is partly the result of one-time supply shortages. The February CPI food component was up a troubling 23.3%. These measures have a lagging effect on food inflation which is expected to slow later in 2008. Inflation is forecasted to moderate to 6% in the 2nd half of 2008.

As for Bursa Malaysia, the local bourse has staged a full comeback to its eve of the general election-day level of 1296 points. This comeback is a 9.7% climb from KLCI lowest level on 17 March at 1173 points. An important point to note is that although it does seem to be a slow climb up the KLCI stairways, there are opportunities for more rewarding growth as the KLCI is still about 18% below its 11th of January 2008 high of 1516.22 points. A point to note is that in any stock market, there will be intermediate rallies and corrections until the market reaches the peak. It isn’t also easy to state a time when this peak’ will happen (to some you ask, has it peaked already? The answer is ‘no’ as the economy hasn’t seen any signs of economic overheating yet). What we need to do is to try to appreciate such periods of ‘volatility’ such as they are the very windows to capitalize on. However, the funny thing is that most investors dislike volatility and prefer to stay on the sidelines until all is clear and safe, which is most of the time…too late. And the peak may not even be 1516 points. It can be well over that level. The world’s richest and most successful investor, Warren Buffet recently answered everyone’s million dollar question on “When is the BEST time to invest?” to which Buffer’s answer was: “I don’t know because I never time the market, but I price the market”. To sum what he meant, it is far more rewarding for us to invest based on values we see in the market than on timing it. Do remember that market prediction is never ACCURATE but attractive valuations in the market are always ACCURATE indicators of rewarding opportunities….like now.

Profit jump 11 folds on YUNKONG from year 2006 to 2007

As promised, taking a closer look on steel related counter. Here, i am evaluating one named "YUNKONG" a manufacture, sale of galvanised & coated steel products, though this guy is not a major steel player but based on demand of steel product in the industry, i believed no matter big or small, these companies are tend to benefit from the increasing demand of this commodity.

First, let take a look of the Profit & Loss for the past 5 years :-

The sales increasing every years to almost about 20% to 30% range which indeed a healthy growth. Earnings or profits vary but registered the highest net profit in year 2007, this interpret 11 times more than year 2006. Current market with increasing steel demand may last for 2 years at least i believed. Yunkong also reported its 1st quarter net profit report with a whopping 500% increase, that represent a 6.77sen EPS, 30% of year 2007 earnings achieved in just 1st quarter result alone. Conservatively, if we take half of its gross EPS from year 2007, this will represent a gross EPS of 11.05sen for year 2008 which i believed it worth far more than this figure. In this context based on current price at 0.66sen the PE ratio should stand around 6sen is about 30% cheaper than the current valuation. Bear in mind this calculation already a discounted figures, additional bonus of 5sen yearly dividend paid for last financial year indeed looks very attractive. Again, if this discounted figures stay for this year 2008, i think Yunkong should worth around 0.88sen which represent 30% undervalue on current valuation.

As usual, buy and sell is totally on your own risk. The above does not recommend a buy call from me. Take your own responsibilities with your own act. Till then happy trading.

Received MAYBULK 30sen T.E Dividend

Just received 30sen T.E dividend from MAYBULK on 12/5/2008. After this dividend the total dividend yield stay at 9% base on current price. Giving a conservative growth at EPS=50sen, this carrier should worth around RM5, if compare to it peer. Nevertheless, market have yet to reflect the true valuation of it. Lets take note the 1st quarter result which take place around this time in May and see how it turn out to be. Bye.

Public Bank shares hit record high on good figures

Public Bank shares hit record high on good figures
KUALA LUMPUR: Shares in Public Bank Bhd rose to a fresh record yesterday as investors switched from their shareholdings in Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank).
Analysts said apart from becoming the country's largest bank in terms of market capitalisation, Public Bank's strong balance sheet, impressive capital ratios and high growth numbers were the added attractions to investors.
“Investors may (also) be looking at Public Bank for its dividend angle,'' said one analyst.
The stock closed up 20 sen at RM12.
Public Bank shares have been rising since the middle of March when it was trading at RM9.80 a share. Its uptrend coincided with the time when news of Maybank's interest in Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) first surfaced.
Confirmation of Maybank's bid for BII towards the end of March and the group's subsequent proposal to buy a 15% stake in Pakistan's MCB Bank Ltd further soured investor appetite for the stock.
Investors were turned off by the high price for the BII bid, and to a lesser extent the purchase of MCB Bank. They also found the prospect of a lower dividend from Maybank difficult to swallow.
The confluence of disappointing news from Maybank has led to its share price sliding from a high of RM9.92 on Feb 14 to RM7.85 yesterday. However, as Maybank's share price fell, Public Bank's shares went in the opposite direction.
Analysts said that apart from Public Bank's dividend of 75 sen a share in the last financial year against 60 sen a year earlier, investors were also pleased with the group's solid fundamentals.
One analyst said Public Bank's loans growth of over 20% on an annualised basis and its strong balance sheet made it a top choice among banking stocks in the country.
“Public Bank's business in Hong Kong, China and Cambodia is growing strongly,'' said one analyst.
The rise in Public Bank's share price has put its valuations at the upper tier in terms of price to book and price to earnings but analysts feel that the growth the stock has been displaying over the years justify such valuations.
Of the 18 analysts polled by Bloomberg, none have a sell call on the stock.

A Good Sharing of Investment

Some interesting chatting below, I find it very true on elmo1988’s comments; the key thing is long term and lock them like FD investment. One would definitely see great return with this kind of investment especially when this giant is trading such a low PE with mitigated risk :-

ET Horse, why has TNB dropped to its lowest point this year?

ET i ve no idea of tnb b4 but when i checked its historical data,it was as high as more than rm12.00!!!!!

elmo1988 et. tnb need fuel to fire up it's generators and you know as of today the price of black gold is well over 124US$ and with the BN at the verge

elmo1988 verge of collapsing, a little push will send the house of cards down. you think our PM will allow tnb to risae the electricity charges? you and i

elmo1988 you and i know the profit is somewhere between the difference of the two variables.

elmo1988 et.different people "play" different games in the market. yours might not be the same as mine. my policy is with this blue chip i will not sell if i d

elmo1988 i will not sell if i do not make some money out of it. so don't expect me to sell when the chips are down. next. as for tnb, it can easily float up t

elmo1988 float up to well over RM10. history has tell us this. i am in for long term, one; two or three years. bet it will go up above 10rm. treat this buy as

elmo1988 buy as a long term f.d. i dare sar it's going to be a very high interest f.d. if only you hold on to it. i have done it before, i will do it again!!

Worth Taking Zhulian In ??

Hi, allow me to state down what a forumer "DoReMe" view on Zhulian. Let me make a mark here for his comments and see how this counter turn out.

On 8/5/2008, DoReMe has commented the following in the chat box after i have bought in this counter at RM1.05 recently :-

"I've taken a deeper look into zhulian when horse bought it at 1.05 and discover these. On paper zhulian looks strong in term of earning, low PE, high dividend n good EPS at round 18sen. First thing is worth looking is it low PE with high growth, they are cash rich with 26mil set aside solely for unit trust investment n strong balance sheet with 120mil cash flow, very healthy indeed. Others like taking cash almost every quarter for div, more profitable than most of its peers like Liqua, high growth with expansion market in Thailand, Singapore n indonasia. If take a look of it business, zhulian offers wider range of product if u notice. Valuation of its conservative PER of 8 times FY2008 forecasted EPS of 16sen, will give a target price of 1.28. Factor the dividend in should be quite attractive. Worth looking & monitoring. "

Beside Zhulian, Maybank is another counter worth looking at for longterm investment after it recent sell down. Till then, happy trading.

Picking stocks with long-term prospects

Picking stocks with long-term prospects
Personal Investing by OOI KOK HWA
This first of a two-part article looks at the criteria for selecting the right stocks
Q: I don’t know how to select the right stocks for long-term investment. Do you have any systematic way for stock selection?
Lately, readers have asked us whether there are basic, systematic ways to select stocks for long-term investment. We find that it’s quite difficult to answer this question as there are many ways to pick stocks. Different fund managers have different methods of picking the right stocks for their funds.
Even though there are no short cuts in screening stocks, we can broadly group our selection according to seven criteria, namely SGPDBHM. “S” stands for sales, “G” – growth, “P” – price-earnings ratio (PER), “D” – dividend yield, “B” – book value, “H” – health and “M” for management.
In this article, we will look at the first four criteria: sales (S), growth (G), PER (P) and dividend yield (D).
S – Annual sales of at least above RM500mil
Our first criterion is to select companies that have total annual sales of RM500mil and above. The main purpose for this is to select big companies for investment. Normally, a company with total sales of above RM500mil is considered well established and is less dependent on its owner.
In most instances, it will be one of the market leaders commanding a certain market share in its industry. Although we are not saying that companies with annual sales of less than RM500mil are not good for investment, less established companies face stiffer competition and have more uncertainties in their future compared with more established companies.
This explains why the majority of our research houses prefer big companies to small companies. At present, if you are holding shares in a lot of small companies (although they have good fundamentals), the majority of them are not performing in terms of stock prices despite the current high stock market valuations.
This may be due to the same worries as well as analysts not paying much attention to those stocks.
G - growth in sales
We need to select stocks with strong sales growth. Higher growth in sales implies that a company is expanding fast.
According to Benjamin Graham in his book entitled “Security Analysis”, a growth company’s business can move faster than its stock price.
Given that our returns depend only on capital gain or dividend income, if a stock never pays any dividend, we need to make sure that we can get capital gains from the stock.
Unless we are able to catch them at cheap prices, we need to make sure that the company has very strong sales growth.
Higher sales will contribute to higher profits and higher stock prices.
P - Low PER stocks
To get a high margin of safety (MOS), we need to find stocks with low PER. For a stock that has a PER of 20 times, you would need to wait 20 years to get back your money, assuming that it can achieve the same earnings per share (EPS) over the next 20 years.
Hence, we should select stocks with low PER, especially lower than the overall stock market or its own industry average.
Given that the current market PER is about 15 times, if you can find a stock that is selling lower than 15 times, we can say that it is selling at a cheaper valuation than that of the overall market.
D- dividend yield of at least equal to fixed deposit rate
A good company needs to pay dividend. We believe this is the best way to rewards shareholders.
There are some listed companies that are making good profits but refuse to reward their shareholders with high dividends as they claim that they need to retain the profits for future expansion.
However, we believe “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.
There are cases where companies are able to generate good returns from every dollar that they retain, but in most cases, some fail in their expansion programmes. To retail investors, there are too many uncertainties over returns from these investments.
We believe that companies that are unable to reward their shareholders with good dividend need to reward them with higher stock prices.
According to Warren Buffett, this is called the one-dollar premise, whereby every dollar that the company retains needs to translate into one dollar in stock price.
Given the present weak stock market, if a company is able to provide a dividend yield that is equal to the fixed deposit rate of 3.7% will attract investors to put their money into their stock instead of in the bank.
>Ooi Kok Hwa is a licensed investment adviser and managing partner of MRR Consulting.

Bought ZHULIAN (5131) at 1.05

Just bought in ZHULIAN this morning at $1.05, considering the overall dividend yield at 15% and PE at 5.8. This really attract me for longterm dividend play. It 1Q net profit 15.315 million (increased 0.37%) look very healthy to me. I expect the EPS to sustain at around 18sen and may continue it generous dividend payout in every quarter.

Recerived Dividend again from BJTOTO

I have received a 8 sen third interim dividend again from BJTOTO. This company is a cash cow company, had never failed delivering her dividend all this while. Every quater sure will one get dividend from it. The 4th qtr dividend is around August in which i expect a minimum of 10 sen this round. At current price RM5 trading at around PE of 17 which i think is relatively high for the present sentiment. Would not adding my holding on this guy as this would not have much surprises on his earning.