Iskandar Malaysia - Next Milestone

Our Iskandar Malaysia Project is growing fast, and this is one of the track record, with RM33 Billion worth of investment obtained.

This is a news quoted from Bernama .

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DUBAI, Oct 7 (Bernama) -- The unveiling of Medini Iskandar Malaysia, a mixed international property development yesterday and the launch of the Iskandar Financial District Tuesday at the Cityscape Dubai 2008 exhibition here, shows that Iskandar Malaysia is moving forward despite the global economic uncertainity.

Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman said Iskandar Malaysia had already attracted investments of RM33 billion and was on target to meet its goal of RM47 billion for the period 2006 to 2010.

Primary investors have given an undertaking to proceed with the projects in Iskandar Malaysia.

"None of the investors have pulled out from Iskandar Malaysia," Abdul Ghani told Malaysian reporters after the unveiling of Iskandar Malaysia to potential investors and developers.

Futhermore, he said the Middle East, China and India had the capacity to fund the development in Iskandar Malaysia given the problems in the US and Europe.

At the same function, Iskandar Investment Bhd (IIB) managing director Arlida Ariff said that Middle East investors were the priority in seeking development partners as the region was a new market that previously had not considered Malaysia as a primary property player.

Three other destinations of focus would be China, Australia and India, she said.

Arlinda disclosed that trade visits would be organised to Australia in the third week of this month, followed by China before the end of the year and India, in early 2009.

She said at Cityscape, IIB's focus, was to attract as many second layer investors or development partners as possible.

She said IIB would meet with those investors who had registered their interest in Medini over the last six months.A number of them were from Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

The lead investor in Medini is Global Capital, an investment entity created by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries and Malaysian investors led by Mubadala of Abu Dhabi.

Global Capital investors have committed to investing around US$1 billion to develop and sell the sites acquired within Medini Iskandar Malaysia, which includes the Iskandar Financial District.

The development value of the financial district alone is expected to exceed US$4.5 billion.

While foreign interest in Iskandar Malaysia has received attention,locals are not far behind.

At the launch of the Iskandar Financial District, it was announced that Pelaburan Hartanah Bumiputera Bhd (PHBB) - an entity entrusted with increasing Bumiputera participation in the property sector in Malaysia - was taking the lead in its development, via the acquisition of 12 hectares of land in a joint venture with IIB.

PHHB managing director/chief executive officer Kamalul Arifin Othman said the development would be in phases and there was ongoing discussions with established public listed companies as well as multinationals to take up space in the buildings to be constructed.

He said PHBB had been allocated RM2 billion by the government for its activities and is involved in the acquisition of buildings and property development with the intention of putting its property portfolio into Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT).

He said PHBB had target to launch its REIT within three years.

He said currently PHBB with a landbank of 120 hectares had also acquired an office building called Menara Bumiputra Commerce at Jalan Raja Laut in Kuala Lumpur. It is being constructed at the moment.

According to a statement issued at the launch, Global Capital said its decision to invite expressions of interest for a limited amount of development parcels in the Iskandar Financial District, was in response to pressure from several financial institutions that have expressed an interest in securing early positions there.



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Seek Purchased 30% stake in Brasil Online Holdings

Another development for substantial investor of JobStreet.com -- Seek .

This is quoted from Sydney Morning Herald .

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THE online job ad publisher Seek has bought 30 per cent of Brasil Online Holdings, owner of two Brazilian employment websites, Catho Online and Manager Online.

Seek will invest $US67 million ($85 million) in the company, funded from a $US200 million syndicated loan. Seek also will take a seat on Brasil's board.

Seek's chief executive, Andrew Bassat, said the business had been looking for opportunities to expand internationally, following an investment in China.

On Wednesday it revealed it had invested in the South-East Asian job website JobStreet Corporation Berhad for 55 million ringgit ($19 million).

"This means that our international investments are now a substantial part of our business and hopefully a key driver of growth," Mr Bassat said yesterday.

Seek's director of corporate strategy, Jason Lenga, said job seekers in Brazil paid to use employment websites.

"Employer-paid advertising [is] in the early stages of development and will provide substantial upside in the longer term," he said.

Consolidated Press Holdings will invest alongside Seek and hold 5 per cent of the company.




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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

SEEK owns 10% stake in JobStreet Corp Bhd

JobStreet Corporation Berhad has a new investor in Seek - the main job board in Australia and New Zealand.

Seek has a 25% stake in Zhaopin in China too!

Quoting from The Edge the full article below

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KUALA LUMPUR: SEEK International Investments Pty Ltd, which is based in Melbourne, has emerged as a substantial shareholder in JobStreet Corp Bhd after acquiring 31 million shares or 9.97% of the Malaysian recruitment firm this month.

Filings to Bursa Malaysia yesterday showed that SEEK International had purchased the shares in four tranches over four days. A total of 15 million and 1.8 million shares were acquired on Sept 5 and 10 respectively. Another 8.5 million and 5.7 million shares were purchased on Sept 11 and 16 respectively.

On Monday, JobStreet announced that US-based Armor Capital Partners, LP had ceased to be a major stakeholder in the recruitment specialist from Sept 11. This happened after the foreign investor disposed of 4.69 million shares in JobStreet.


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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Cradle Investment Programme Talk

Got this news from Didie, a former classmate of mine during ATU at Overseas Preparatory Programme (OPP) or Program Persediaan Luar Negeri (PPLN). It has been a long time since we last kept in touch. She is with Cradle now.

They are having a talk. The details below:-

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Cradle Investment Programme (CIP), a fund managed by Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd (CFSB) under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance (MOF), is Malaysia's first development and pre-seed funding programme which enables Malaysia’s budding innovators and aspiring innovative entrepreneurs to transform their raw technology-oriented ideas into commercially viable ventures.

CIP Catalyst, the pre-seed funding programme provides conditional grants of up to a maximum of three conditional tranches of RM50,000 per tranche to groups of individuals with innovative ideas in the ICT, non-ICT and high-growth technology industries. CIP also provides extensive value added services and exclusive assistance to address the changing needs faced by entrepreneurs. A sum of RM100 million has been allocated by MOF for this programme.

CIP aims to create an ecosystem that would support a strong and innovative business-building environment and commercialization efficiency for aspiring entrepreneurs. For more info on our programme, kindly logon to our website:
www.cradle.com.my.

We are organizing an Info Talk on “How to get Funding” as follows:

Date: 16th September 2008
Time: 9 am – 12 pm
Venue: Renong Auditorium, Management Institute of Malaysia (MIM), Jalan Ampang.
Admission: FREE

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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Updates on Iskandar Development Region

On the New Year eve, Johor Menteri Besar, Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman listed down the list of projects that Iskandar Development Region (IDR) would be carrying out this year - 2008.

A lot of it would be infrastructure and developmental type of work.

Among the major projects include:-
a) RM4.2 billion Node 1 project in Nusajaya
b) RM1 billion Eastern Dispersal Link (EDL)
c) RM1 billion coastal highway linking Johor Bharu with Nusajaya (15km)
d) RM900 million for cleaning up Sungai Skudai, Segget and Tebrau.
e) RM500 million for MSC Cyber City project in Kulai
f) RM1.2 billion new state administrative center would start operations in Nusajaya in March 2008.
g) RM1.7 billion for development of leisure zone in Zone 1 (30km from Johor Bharu, after the Second Link) by Alder Properties, a Abu Dhabi-based main developer.
h) RM1.08 billion for developmnet of culture cluster in Zone 1 by Al-Nibras 2 Limited, a subsidiary of Kuwait Finance House.
i) RM1.07 billion for development of the international financial zone by Abu Dhabi's Millimium Development Company.

The info above is adapted from The Star 1st January 2008.

Hopefully, with this infusion of development, we can see IDR being able to develop. Since it was launched in November 2006, there has been a lot of plannings and also we have seen IDR being very aggressive in recruiting many of our country's top talent there.

Really hope that IDR would be a success story, and it would be able to transform the landscape of Johor state, into a progressive state, which would be comparable to Singapore.

Bank Lippo and Bank Niaga to merge

Khazanah Nasional Berhad would be conducting feasibility study to merge its two Indonesian banks to comply with Indonesia's new regulations. Khazanah has a 93% stake in Bank Lippo, the 10th largest bank in Indonesia (with total asset of 33.4 trillion rupiah) and an indirect 64% stake in Bank Niaga (through CIMB bank), the 7th largest bank in Indonesia (with total asset of 46.5 trillion rupiah).

The merged entity would become the 6th largest bank in Indonesia. It is expected to have more mergers as well, as Temasek Holdings & Indonesian Government are facing such issues as well to merge their holdings in Indonesian banks.

Malaysia ranked 4th for investor protection

In the latest ranking by World Bank and International Finance Corp on Investor Protection, Malaysia ranked a high of 4th position, just behind New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. Malaysia finished ahead of regional powerhouses like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China.

Countries were judged based on three indices of investor protection, comprising the extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder suits where all indices range from 0-10, with higher values indicating more protection or greater disclosure

Malaysia had scored a perfect 10 for extent of disclosure, an equally impressive nine for director liability and seven for shareholder suits.

The report also suggested that starting a business in Malaysia next year would take a shorter period of 24 days compared with 30 days previously, although dealing with licences would remain the same at 25 days.

Malaysia and Iran inks a USD16 Billion deal

SKS Ventures, headed by Mokhtar al-Bokhari signed a landmark USD16 billion deal with Iran's Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) to develop Golshan and Ferdows gas fields in southern Iran.

This would be the largest energy deal in Iran. Some $6 billion is for development of offshore and $10 billion for development of onshore gas fields for a period of 25 years.

Hopefully, SKS Ventures would be able to deliver well on this project and keep up the good name of Malaysia in Middle East. Hopefully, this would also trigger the ripple effects of even more investment from Malaysia there.

To read the full news, go to Associated Press

The Edge Real Estate Investment Forum

Managed to get the links for the presentation slides for Edge Real Estate Investment Forum.

If you are interested, do email me and I can share with you the details. The slides are only up until 15th November.

CIMB Wealth Advisors Asset Allocation Talk

This morning, attended an Asset Allocation seminar organized by CIMB Wealth Advisors.

I would rate it as quite a good seminar, where it gives people like me more knowledge to learn on various asset allocation. About 400 people attended it, although again, among the crowd of under 30, I think I am one of the very few. Wonder why. Are the youth not interested in such events? It is not that the youth do not know, since it is advertised in The Star many times.

Tan Beng Wah, CEO of CIMB Wealth Advisors started the day, by showing some basic slides. He showed that total Net Asset Value for unit trust in Malaysia has grown from RM33.5 Billion in 1997 to RM152.5 Billion today. That's a 5-fold increase. For market capitalization of Bursa, it was RM375.8 Billion in 1997 and it is now RM1.077 Trillion. That's about 3 fold increase. So, unit trust has grown from about 9% of Bursa to 14% of Bursa.

He shows on how predicting short term market movement would be challenging and it would be crucial to have various asset allocation technique. And diversification can be done within same asset class, for example through different region or different industry or different size of companies.

Among the asset class would include the typical Equities, Bond (Fixed Income), REITs, Structured Product, Alternative Investments etc.

Other speakers of the day include:-
1. Kirk West - Managing Director of Asia Principal Global Investor
2. Arnold Lim - Head of Retail Sales, CIMB Wealth Advisors
3. William Tan - Head of Sales, Franklin Templeton Investment
4. Teng Chee Wei - CEO of HwangDBS Investment Management Berhad
5. Francis Eng - Fund Manager of OSK-UOB Unit Trust Management Berhad
6. Choo Swee Kee - Chief Investment Officer of TA Investment
7. Josephine Yip - Head of Retail Sales Malaysia for Schroder Investment Management Private Limited.

As the talk has touched on too many aspects, I would choose to highlight some of the major take-aways that I get. A lot of those are just classic advice.

1. Time in the market vs timing the market - It has been mentioned many times that what matters is being in the market early. Start investing at younger age and you would be able to ride through it. In the long run, the trend is always on the up side, although it might go up and down within a particular year or even within a particular cycle of about 10 years.

2. People usually perceive that it is risky when prices are low and not risky when prices are high. In fact, it is not so. And sometimes, the opposite could be true. Low prices might mean opportunities for purchase, especially in terms of Value Investing.

3. Risk is quantifiable and can be priced into value of security, whereas uncertainty is a state of mind, typefied by lack of sureness about something and is often subjective. Uncertainty can create market volatility.

4. Control those variables that are controllable.
a) Asset Allocation
b) Investment Selections
c) Time Horizon
d) Risk Level
e) Saving Rate
f) Active/Passive Management Approach

5. Each asset class would have different correlation with each other and often the correlation is quite low. So, it would be a good idea to mix and bundle with various asset class. Construct a portfolio that match with the efficient frontier, and within the risk appetite that we want, as well as with the projected returns that we want. Rebalancing would need to be done from time to time, to ensure that the investment are in tune.

6. Based on a study, variation in an investment, is affected mainly by asset allocation. Would say more than 90% of the effects.

7. For each investor, we would have our own risk profile. When do we want the returns to be reap? Do we want to try and earn as much as we can, while taking more risk? Or we just want to ensure that we do capital protection, where we are protected from inflation and perhaps earn a little more?

8. There are two types of investment style.
a) Target Risk - This would mean that we determine the proportion of each asset class. If we look at high level, perhaps % of equity, % of bond/fixed income, % of REIT/Property? So, we fix the percentage, based on our profile, age, affordability and then we move it strategically from time to time. Perhaps once every quarter or half yearly. This kind of investment is not trading, which means you do not focus on price movement every day. (For me, I am looking at my investment once a month, to track its progress.)

b) Target Date - This would basically set a date that we need the money. The further the time horizon, the more risk, we could afford to take, and then the risk factor would gradually decrease over time. Equity is definitely more risky compared to fixed income, but it also potentially bring in more returns. So, for those with longer term investment profile, that would be something that you might want to overweight. For REIT investment, it would depend on whether we are looking at capital appreciation or rental income.

9. There are top-down, as well as bottom-up approach.
a) Top-down would mean looking at global macroeconomic factors, and then zoom into domestic economy and sector and then asset allocation within the sector.
b) Bottom-up approach would mean looking at each company's fundamentals and then do a stock review and build a recommended list of stock database.
Either means could generate returns. It would depend on how we want to structure it.

10. Value investing vs growth investing
a) For value investing, we look at undervalued companies, as well as companies with low PE, PB and PCF ratios. Focus also on companies with high dividend yield.
b) For growth investing, we look at those with above average earnings growth and profits and typically these companies have higher price relative to PE and PB ratios. Generally, it pays very little or no dividend.

11. According to William Tan, secotrs that have potential include Media and Communications, Pharmaceutical, Energy and IT.

12. 3 Ps of Investing
- Prudence, Preseverence and Patience
- An anecdote was provided "No matter how great the talent and effort, some things just take time. For example, one cannot produce a baby in 1 month, by making 9 women getting pregnant.

13. For Real Estate investing, it would be divided into 4 types:-
a) Private and Equity - Core, value added and opportunistic property
b) Private and Debt - Commercial Mortgage, Bridge, Mezzanine
c) Public and Equity - Real Estate Investment Trust
d) Public and Debt - Commercial Mortgage Backed Security

14. Case for Global Property Security
a) Diversification - more efficient portfolio
b) Large Opportunity set - high total return portfolio to large and rapidly growing investment opportunity
c) Liquidity - liquid and efficient method of investing in real estate

15. Global Real Estate has a much higher Sharpe Ratio than Global Equity and Global Bond. So, for real estate, for each unit of risk, it is being rewarded with much better returns.

16. On subprime problem, Kirk West shows that U.S. is a $10 Trillion market and mortgage is a USD1.5 Trillion market. 80% of mortgage are in Triple A and 15% are in Alternate A. So, only 5% of mortgage or USD75 billion are affected by sub prime.

17. Thematic investment. We were shown aspects of investing in Global Infrastructure, Environmental opportunities and natural resources.

18. Infrastructure are divided into 4 groups.
a) Social infrastructure - courts, hospital, school, police & army
b) Regulated asset - transmission asset, distribution asset, water and sewerage
c) User Demand asset - road, railway and airport
d) Competitive asset - Communications, Power generation, energy trading

19. For Environmental, it is focused on energy, water and waste, and main drivers for it, is market liberalization, environmental policy, new business model, scarcity of resources and corporate activity.

20. For natural resources, year-to-date, growth has been very solid for lead, wheat, crude oil etc. However, there is still a lot of room for commodity like coffee, sugar, cocoa, cotton etc. Essentially, arable land and resources are limited, so there is only upside in the long run.

21. Strategy for natural resources investment are that when commodity prices are high, invest in upstream, where the commodity is generated. When prices are low, invest in downstream activity, where the industrialization/production of products from natural resources are done. For example, when rubber price is high, invest in rubber production company. When rubber price is low, invest in companies that purchase rubber to produce rubber-related product, and during that stage, cost is low when rubber price is low.

22. European market. Employment in Europe went through cycles.
a) 1994-1998 - Employment slow
b) 1998-2001 - Employment growth
c) 2002-2005 - Employment slow
d) 2006 to now - Employment growth
So, this means lots of room for consumer purchasing power to grow. Euro is at all-time high against USD as well.

23. On why invest in Euro?
a) Global infrastructure spending
b) Restructuring to raise returns
c) Global trade growth
d) Europe has been neglected lately
e) Merger and acquisitions are growing
f) Secular growth opportunities
g) Domestic recovery

24. China has been opening up, and now foreigners can purchase A and B share in Shanghai and Shenzhen bourse. Whereas Mainlanders can now purchase H shares from Hong Kong and other parts of the world.

25. Dollar cost averaging and value averaging are being shared as potential ways of investing and main theme is that it is crucial to be committed and discipline in maintaining asset allocation.

26. 4 types of asset allocation are shown as example:-
a) Conservative Portfolio - 77% Fixed Income, 8% Global Property, 5% Malaysia Equity, 5% Asia Equity, 5% World Equity
b) Moderate Portfolio - 48% Fixed Income, 15% Global Property, 25% Asia Equity, 5% World Equity, 7% Malaysia Equity
c) Moderate Aggressive Portfolio - 25% Fixed Income, 15% Property, 44% Asia Equity, 11% Malaysia Equity, 5% World Equity
d) Aggressive Portfolio - 70% Asia Equity, 5% Malaysia Equity, 5% World Equity, 5% Fixed Income, 15% Global Property


I would say that I enjoy attending such public lectures and I would definitely encourage all those people who read my blog (I know there are not many, perhaps around 20-25 people a day), but I would encourage everyone to continue pick-up knowledge as you go.

As a conclusion, I would review my own investment portfolio, although total amount is not much. I would say that I should increase on my investment in global property and Asia Pacific Equity, while try to reduce my investment within our local bourse.

How about yours?