Read, read and read

Read, read and read

Remember the SYL (Sweet Young Lady, sorry not SYT or Sweet Young Thing because she is really a sweet young lady) who regularly posts motivation and meaningful notes on her Facebook?

Yours truly continues to be her ardent reader/fan/supporter (you name it) ever since I got to know her. Some of her meaningful notes even touched  my spouse so much that this SYL was in her thoughts from time to time.

My spouse showed her appreciation by presenting her a personally home-made Durian moon cake recently. (One of the toughest tasks in preparing moon cake is the stirring of the paste where one stands in front of the burning gas stove for long period of time). I should know because I was ordered by my spouse to carry out that stirring duty).

I am happy to share with you that it has been a great wonderful year for this SYL. She fulfilled her dream of visiting South Korea early this year (luckily before the depreciating ringgit against the US dollar).

SYL has been in love for a long time since her early days with .... almost everything about what South Korea has to offer. SYL loves their series drama, music, food, places and SYL can even speak a bit of Korean!

SYL recently upgraded herself with a new sporty car. I called the car Pinky because it was in beautiful shinny pink colour and the car really matches her as both were rather small size. In Bahasa Malaysia, we call it "secocok".

Indeed SYL is a wonderful friend to have and yours truly has the privilege to be in her lists! There is one more thing .... SYL is also is my gadget Shifu. I learnt a great deal from her on how to use the various apps and this has helped me a lot. Ironically, both of us happened to be using the same model hand phone and both of us incidentally bought it one week apart.

While I called her my Gadget Shifu, she sees me as her Financial Shifu which I am a bit flattered. SYL is now keen to learn about the Financial issues and I am glad that I am able to share my knowledge and experience  with her.

For her young age, SYL is actually matured in her thoughts as I found out.

Many gen-y at her age would most probably be enjoying life to the fullest without much a care of what is going to happen tomorrow, but not SYL. She is concerned about the future with the constant rising cost of living and inflation.

SYL hopes to learn about Financial issues which can help her to be in a good financial position. I termed it as Financial Freedom. (Anyway, Financial Freedom is another issue, perhaps I like to share with my readers in the future).

I wish her a very successful financial future in the years ahead.

Recently I came across one of her posting sharing about the secret why only a few per cent of people are more successful than the majority. And the secret is so simple : read, read and read.

Research has shown that the majority of people do not read. Why? Are they too busy that the time for reading is not there? Or they do not know how to read? Or they find reading a waste of time? Or they do know where to search for related reading materials/information? Or reading is not the trend anymore?

I think the reasons/excuses for not reading could be endless if I were to go on asking many people.

According to the "secret", people who spend some time reading certain subject tend to be more knowledgeable about that subject

Now back here, my question is : Do you read? If you read, what do you read? What interests you to read? If that particular subject is of no interest to you, you are unlikely to read. So this brings us to the subject of interest to us. You might read something of a particular subject you are interested in.

For example if a person is interested in plant, chances are he will search high and low for reading materials/ideas on that. And if he consistently  reads again and again over a period of time, this person is likely to know a lot about plant. What he knows is known as expertise/valuable knowledge which will be only useful for him if he applies it into action!

This reminder to read also reaffirmed my belief that one should read a lot if one is interested about a particular subject. I recalled those days when internet access was very limited to the public and searching for reading materials/ideas about investing/companies' profiles/investment strategies  was very difficult.

I read A LOT about all these whenever possible. I also spent a great deal of time reading those investment magazines, The Edge, Personal Money, Smart Investors, Focus Malaysia and many annual reports.

I am not "malu" to say that those days when I went to the toilet for my usual morning business, I would carry a few annual report with me. It was during "those moment" when my attention was about what was written about the  annual report rather than what I was ACTUALLY doing.

My annual report books were filling up my big cupboard apart from all those stocks magazines and The Edge. My wife was constantly reminding me I should do something about this before my whole reading room becomes a giant library!

Thanks to the internet, I do not keep many hardcopy annual reports anymore. I still did keep some, but maybe due to the beautiful pictures and unique designs of the annual reports copies.

The so many years of reading has actually helped me to understand the financial positions of companies although I must again admit that there are many financial reports with a lot of figures that I cannot understand fully.

Nevertheless it has been a great help for me when it comes to investing as I stand a better chance of knowing the financial health of a particular company rather then simply investing into it without a slightest knowledge of it.

So for those who not want or wish to read before jumping into a stocks, you are most probably taking a risk only you will be responsible.

Then again, it is your money and you are your own king.

Keck Seng - The next decade

Keck Seng

- The next decade

Keck Seng (Malaysia) Berhad (Keck Seng) is a cash-rich and asset-rich company based in Johore. This is one company with a lot of lands that has not been revalued for over a decade or even longer than that.

Surprisingly, this Malaysian company is not majority owned by Malaysians, rather by three siblings from our "kiasu" neighbours, Singapore. I am really piqued how these three Singaporean siblings are able to own Keck Seng. There seemed to be no history or story about this as I could not find from any articles.

The three siblings, Ho Kim Swee (Executive Chairman), Dato' Ho Cheng Chong (Managing Director) and Ho Eng Chong ((Non-Executive Director) have been the "captains" of Keck Seng since more than several decades.

The three are not young anymore. Kim Swee is 70, Cheng Hong 68 and Eng Chong 65 know that time to managing Keck Seng is running out. How many more years can they hang on?

At the most, yours truly would give it a time frame of between five to ten years. Then whom do you think would be the new "captains" of Keck Seng?

If one is to read its 2014 Annual Report carefully, one is likely to find its clue there. Three of their sons and one nephew are sitting in the Board of Directors.

The nephew, Chan Kui Ming 45, is the Executive Director. The three sons, Ho Chung Kain 40 and Ho Chung Hui 39 are sons of senior Ho Kim Swee while Ho Chung Tao 41 is the son of Ho Kim Swee. These three sons  play the role as alternate Director.

In my opinions, these four are most probably likely to be next "new" group of captains of Keck Seng. Only time will tell if my prediction will be right or not. And I personally feel I should be also be spot-on this time.

Should my prediction be proven right, how will these new group of "young" chiefs  manage Keck Seng? Will it follow their seniors' style (China-man style as some commented) or will it be a new dawn for Keck Seng?

These "new" four juniors are also most probably educated in overseas unlike their peers and are more exposed in their thoughts. As such, there might be new changes in the direction of Keck Seng when the time comes.

Mind you, the present seniors have done a good job although not all will agree with it. Those who had kept Keck Seng shares (very patiently) for more than ten years ago would have seen their investment became free with the usual 8 to 10 sen consistent dividends over the period.

Not only that, Keck Seng has also done well in its investments in securities, notably realising a huge bumper profit from its investment in Parkway shares for a profit of RM260 million just a few years back.

The market had then anticipated that Keck Seng would distribute this windfall of almost 95 sen per share to its shareholders. But somehow, the  management must have thought differently and it became a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT to its shareholders. (I wrote about that on December 21, 2013, the title : When the drum stops beating for Keck Seng).

As a result of its good investments in securities and a bit of land sale to the government, Keck Seng has seen its cash ballooning over the years.

The 2014 Annual Report stated that its cash is RM972 millions (comprising  cash at bank : RM117, money market : RM186, deposit with licensed banks : RM457 and foreign financial institutions : RM223) millions respectively.

There are RM424 millions from its investment is securities (comprising quoted in Malaysia : RM155 and quoted outside Malaysia : RM268) millions respectively.

Keck Seng also has stakes in other listed companies, one of it is cash rich plantation company, Chin Teck Plantations Berhad (Chin Teck).

The latest 2014 Annual Report of Chin Teck showed that Keck Seng is the 6th largest shareholder with a 3.05% stakes or 2,784,375 shares.

Keck Seng must be holding onto "that" position in Chin Teck since more than a decade ago or even longer.

Till today, Keck Seng has also been very reluctant to even revalue its land bank (which some of not been revalued since decades ago). Revaluing its land bank at current time would have surely heighten up interest in this stock.

If it decides to do so, surely Keck Seng's current depressed share price of just over RM5 (compared to its near two year high of RM7.97 on Nov 4, 2013) would have seen some appreciation.

But wait, this is unlikely to happen anytime soon. The current management of Keck Seng are just contended with Keck Seng at the moment and are most probably happy with it.

Perhaps in the next decade, when that "anticipated" set of new management takes over then we might see some kind of new excitement play in Keck Seng? Until then, we just have to wait patiently .....

As one blogger of iinvestor.com by the name of prudentinvestor posted : Invest in Keck Seng only if you are extremely patient and have the holding power.

Incidentally, do you know of any investors who have been holding onto Keck Seng shares for more than 10 years? If you are one, I would be more than happy to know.

I believed I knew one investor who fits perfectly into that category. This investor has been holding onto her original 1,000 shares (now 1,500 shares) of Keck Seng since Nov 2, 1999. That is more than 15 years already!

This investor is the spouse of yours truly!