Mar 30, 2011
Man who ran Ponzi scheme jailed for 80 months
By Elena Chong

A MAN who ran a large Ponzi scheme by promising high returns to his investors in futures trading was jailed for 80 months on Wednesday. Dickson Tan Jing Yun took nearly $6 million in investment funds from 46 people from September 2004 to October 2008.

He paid out only $1.5 million to the investors, including principal repayments. No other restitution has been made, with $4.5 million lost either through trading or personal use.

Tan, 37, pleaded guilty last week to running a business of fund management without holding a capital markets services licence between 2004 and 2008. He also admitted to 10 charges of criminal breach of trust of $1.2 million, of which $834,332 or 67 per cent of the total sum were dishonestly converted to his own use.

Senior District Judge See Kee Oon, who took another 22 charges into consideration, agreed with Deputy Public Prosecutor Christopher Ong Siu Jin that there were aggravating features in the case which called for a stiff sentence.

'The premise was to lure additional investors to join the scheme while seemingly making good on initial promises of guaranteed fixed returns - essentially a confidence trick repeated many times over on potential unsuspecting victims,'' said the judge. He said Tan clearly planned his offences, and had systematically repeated his pattern of offending, A number of his clients were not well-educated and a few were above 50 years old.

Tan was an insurance agent in 2004 when he ran the scheme on the sidelines. He then joined another company as an associate manager and his last appointment was a branch manager with an insurance broker December 2007.

Hi

Has anyone subscrbe to the 25 mbps fibre broadband plan offered by M1?
I would like to try it but am afraid that it is not reliable as it is still relatively new and I'm afraid that it will be disruptive and I will have to bear with it for 2 whole years if things dont turn out well.
Any feedback/comments would be appreciated.
Thanks

Mar 29, 2011
Cherie Hearts fighting receivership

THE holding company of childcare chain Cherie Hearts, expressing shock that its investor G8 Education (G8) had put it into receivership, said it will fight the action.

Cherie Hearts Group International said in a statement signed by its group executive chairman Sam Yap yesterday that it has applied, through its lawyers from Allen & Gledhill, for an interim injunction against G8.

A hearing has been fixed for today.

Cherie Hearts Group International, which owns 64 childcare centres under the Cherie Hearts name, said it sold its businesses to Australian-listed G8 for $24.6 million last October.

G8 runs more than 100 childcare centres in Australia.

Other than its childcare and preschool centres, Cherie Hearts also has a teachers' training facility, enrichment facility and overseas centres, which it says were not sold to G8.

The company said that, as part of the agreement, it received from G8 a loan, which was offset from the purchase price at the start of this month.

Cherie Hearts is arguing that, since the loan has been offset, there is no basis for the appointing of receivers because it does not owe G8 money.

'G8's appointment of the receivers is extremely shocking... It has caused great alarm among many families,' it said in its statement, in reference to parents who wonder whether their children still have a school to attend.

A company in receivership - a form of corporate bankruptcy - is one in which receivers, often appointed by its creditors or the bankruptcy court, step in to run the company.

NG KAI LING

For all these stories about how people have lost their fortunes in online poker, here's an example of how people can win when gambling.

Some mental dexterity.
Hard work & Deliberate practice.
Maximizing the odds at a game that is winnable.

Some provocative implications for investing / trading.
If you take one of Buffett's advice about only investing in 20 stocks over your whole life, and then you compare with someone who trades in and out everyday, perhaps the guy who trades in & out pressing on a small mathematical advantage over lots of trades might be a better approach than one who takes 5 years to figure out if he made the right decision.



THE YOUTH ISSUE
Online Poker’s Big Winner
By JAY CASPIAN KANG
Published: March 25, 2011

Daniel (jungleman12) Cates, a 21-year-old self-made multimillionaire, lapsed economics/computer-science major and one-day Bubble Trouble champion of the world, was mildly annoyed. A reputedly solid player under the gun had just bet, and Cates needed to figure out if he was bluffing. Cates consulted the stat readout and deduced that the kid’s erratic betting over the past 200 hands was a product of emotional fragility. With no pair, no draw and no hope of winning a showdown of hands, Cates again raised the pot. At a second table, Cates had just made his flush. He put out a value bet that was precisely calibrated to resemble a bluff. At a third table, he folded. At a fourth, he called for time. At a fifth, his mouse slipped, causing him to accidentally fold. He muttered a profanity before turning his attention back to the first two tables.
Enlarge This Image

Christopher Morris for The New York Times
Daniel Cates, above.
Multimedia

Graphic
Both plays worked. The reputedly solid player was, indeed, bluffing. He folded. Cates chuckled and said, almost seductively, “That’s right, spew monkey, spew all those chips over here.” At the second table, Cates’s opponent called the value bet and showed the worst of it. Cates had just won more than $30,000, but his attention had already shifted over to Table 3, where he had been dealt a monster hand. He turned to me and said: “Sorry if these stakes are boring. I would be playing bigger, but it’s been a rough week.”

His apology was interrupted by a beeping. At one of the empty tables tiled across the top of the screen, Gus (The Great Dane) Hansen’s personalized Full Tilt Poker avatar appeared. (Hansen is one of the most recognized players in the world. His avatar is a cartoonish rendering of his face.) Cates muttered, “There he is.” In the chat box in the lower-left-hand corner of the screen, Hansen asked Cates if he would like to play some Pot Limit Omaha (P.L.O.), a form of poker known for its wild swings and even wilder betting patterns. Cates typed, “Not right now.” Hansen’s avatar disappeared. Cates said, “Gus has been sort of crushing me at P.L.O.” When asked what the phrase “sort of crushing” might mean in the context of high-stakes online poker, Cates shook his head and said: “I don’t know. I’ve lost maybe a million, a million point two over the past few days to Gus. Something like that.”

The thought was sobering enough for Cates to call it an afternoon, and he suggested we have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. For the next 10 minutes, we sat in the driveway of the modest Orlando condo he shared with two roommates as he fumbled around with the Bluetooth-iPhone sync-up in his new Lexus ISC, a car whose $40,000 sticker price seems perfectly practical for a 21-year-old whose net worth places him in such a high income bracket. After much cursing and mumbling, he gave up and plugged his iPhone into the car’s USB port. The next five minutes were spent trying to find a decent driving song. He ended up choosing a recent dance-hall mash-up of various tunes from the Super Mario video-game series.

The Cheesecake Factory was mobbed. We found a spot at the bar, and Cates flagged down the bartender to order the filet mignon. In the five meals Cates and I shared over three days, he ordered filet mignon three times. As we waited for the bartender to bring us our drinks, I noted our luck in finding a seat on Valentine’s Day. Without a trace of irony, Cates, who speaks in the halting cadence most often associated with World of Warcraft group chats, asked, “Why would a restaurant be any more crowded on Valentine’s Day?”

Daniel Lawrence Cates was born on Nov. 14, 1989, on the Virginia side of the Beltway, and he grew up nearby in Bowie, Md. His father works in a managerial position in a technology firm. His mother works as a manager at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. He describes his childhood as “weird, a bit aloof and mostly spent alone.” Around age 6, he began to withdraw from the regular play of his classmates. “I was figuring out that my interests were different than the other kids’ at school. I was never into fashion or politics or sports. So I began to spend most of my time by myself.” Most of this alone time was spent in the basement of his childhood home, where he discovered a “natural talent” for playing video games, especially Command and Conquer. Lillian Cates describes her son’s obsession with video games as “uncontrollable”: “When he was a kid, we tried to limit his video-game time and his computer time, but it was impossible.”

At Eleanor Roosevelt High School, part of the Washington area’s network of math-and-science magnet schools, Cates was a gifted, if somewhat unmotivated, student who routinely sneaked off to the school’s computer lab to play Minesweeper, the puzzle game that has come standard with Windows since the first Bush administration. During his junior year, he began playing in local live-action poker games held in the kitchens and living rooms of people whom he describes as “not really friends.” Despite the relatively low stakes involved, Cates managed to lose several thousand dollars over a period of three months. The losses alarmed his parents, who put a freeze on his savings account. Faced with a cash-flow problem and owing $600 to a fellow player, Cates took a job at McDonald’s. But he continued to play poker with a dogged mantra. “I knew that if I just kept working at poker, my game would vastly improve,” he said. “When I started playing Minesweeper, I thought it was inconceivable that someone could clear all the mines in 90 seconds. Then I kept working at it. Before I knew it, I had accomplished what I thought was impossible. The same thing happened with poker. When I started out playing low limits, I’d look up at a guy playing with $2,000 and think, How is he doing that? He must be so good. But I just kept working at it. Eventually, everything changed.”

Within 18 months, Cates went from routinely losing at local $5 games to winning at the highest stakes of online poker for anywhere between $10,000 and $500,000 per night. In 2010, his reported $5.5 million in online earnings was more than $1 million higher than the nearest competitor. Unlike other young poker millionaires who make the bulk of their money by winning televised tournaments — a proposition that, because of the high number of players and the unpredictability of their actions, involves roughly the same amount of luck as winning a small lottery — Cates earned his stake by grinding, the term used to describe the process of pressing a skill advantage over an extended period of time. Because poker is a game of high variance, where a significant difference in ability can be mitigated by a bad run of cards, a player’s Expected Value (E.V.) must be actualized over thousands of hands. Every year, a few dozen kids go on hot streaks and take a shot at the big time. Almost invariably, these kids are eventually ground down by higher caliber players. What made Cates’s run different wasn’t his total winnings or the speed with which he earned his millions. What caught the attention of the poker world was that the 20-year-old top online earner of 2010 won almost all of his money in head-to-head confrontations with poker’s elite.

The gospel of E.V. that keeps the poker hierarchy in order was shaken. Cates had taken on all comers in 2010, including highly publicized matches against top-flight pros like Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Ilari (Ziigmund) Sahamies and his fellow young gun Tom (durrrr) Dwan. Each of these men has helped turn poker into a multimillion-dollar celebrity enterprise. Each ranks among the 20 or so most recognized players in the world. And in each of his matches with poker royalty, Cates came out hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead.

In Sweden, an even younger poker pro named Viktor (Isildur1) Blom was also winning and losing at a dizzying rate. In December 2009, Blom took Cates for $500,000, handing Cates the worst beating of his career to that point. Later that day, Blom won more than $700,000 from Brian (Sbrugby) Townsend. His next opponent was Brian (Stinger) Hastings. Within a few hours, Blom lost an estimated $4.2 million to Hastings, reportedly the biggest one-day loss in online poker history.

The vast sums of money shuttled among the accounts of these young professionals — and the shocking aggressiveness and recklessness with which they played — deepened the divide between the young online players and the older guard who earned their millions when poker was still a game played by men sitting around a table. Since the rise of online poker in the early 2000s, every principle of the game, every lesson learned over hundreds of thousands of hours of play, every simple credo uttered in some old Western gambling movie — all those tersely stated, manly things that made up the legend of poker — has been picked apart and, for the most part, discarded.

Patience is no longer rewarded. If an 18-year-old online whiz can play 12 hands at once, then by his 19th birthday, he is no less experienced than a career gambler who has sat for a dozen years at the big-money table at the Bellagio. It didn’t take long before the young players began crushing established gamblers online, and the question rang out across the poker world: How were these kids, many of whom were too young to set foot inside a casino, outsharking the sharks?

In Command and Conquer, the video game that consumed much of Cates’s childhood, a player leads an army into a real-time battle. The combat units are vaguely futuristic and highly specialized. Success depends on the efficiency with which a player can build his resources and the speed with which he can deploy them. It is a difficult game to play and an even harder game to master. The best players develop a predatory instinct for detecting the exact moment when an opponent has weakened. High-end strategy combines lightning-fast reflexes, unabashed aggression and razor-thin resource management. Reckoning comes by way of particle cannon. By the age of 15, Cates told me repeatedly, he was one of the world’s best Command and Conquer players.

Phil Gordon, a 40-year-old poker professional who has won $3 million in tournaments, written three best-selling books and hosted several TV shows, including Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown, says he believes that the early and immersive training offered by video games, paired with online poker’s increasing space in the mainstream, has laid out a practice ground for a militia of young, fearless, invincible players. “The prototypical successful young gun is fast and unpredictable,” Gordon says. “Those traits make them nearly impossible to beat, especially when playing at warp speeds. The manual dexterity required to play 12 or even 16 or 20 tables at one time is enormous. The mental dexterity required to play well while making that number of decisions in a very short amount of time is even more impressive. Many of the video games the kids grew up with like Command and Conquer or Call of Duty required a similar dexterity and gave these kids a leg up — the more tables they could play accurately, the more decisions they got to make, and the quicker they were able to learn.”

Then there’s the fact that high-stakes poker rewards aggression. A player who cannot fire off a bluff because he is worried about his daughter’s private-school tuition will be quickly run over by the players who don’t have such concerns. While heightened dexterity, comfort with snap decisions and the stamina gained from years spent sitting in front of a computer screen give the young online pro an edge over his older counterpart, the greatest benefit borne from a life spent playing video games lies somewhere in the strange, disconnected relationship between what is simulated and what is real. The armies of Command and Conquer do not suffer real casualties. An unsuccessful session of Minesweeper does not result in the loss of a leg.

In online poker, lost money registers only as debits in the player’s offshore account. When a player loses a million-dollar pot, the action plays out in cartoon animation.

“Most of us young kids who play at nosebleed stakes don’t really have any clear idea about the actual value of the money we win or lose,” Cates says. “Most of us see the money more as a points system. And because we’re all competitive, we want to have the highest score. But really, we don’t know what making $400,000 or losing $800,000 means, because we don’t have families or whatever. This blind spot gives us the freedom to always make the right move, regardless of the amount at stake, because our judgment isn’t clouded by any possible ramifications.”

It is unclear whether Cates actually does understand that the money is real. On the second day of my visit, we took a trip to Best Buy. Cates had grown bored of playing poker and wanted to buy a video game. As we stood in the PS3 aisle, discussing which games looked good, I asked him if he had ever walked into a store like Best Buy — or perhaps a car dealership — and thought to himself, Hey, I can buy out this entire place. Cates smiled sheepishly. He said: “I’m not really into material wealth. Plus, I need to save up some more money. My fiscal goal for 2011 is to reach $10 million in liquid cash.” I asked what the difference might be between $5 million and $10 million, especially for a 21-year-old whose relative spending habits sit somewhere on the line between modest and monastic. He explained: “You can do anything with $10 million. Like, you can buy a house and still have around $5 million left over.”

Days before our first scheduled meeting in Orlando, Cates called from Australia, where he was playing in the Aussie Millions, a live-action tournament similar to the World Series of Poker. He asked if I might be able to move our date back a few days. He was vague about the reasons, citing “a thing” with “some guy.” After a few reassurances, he finally came out with the reason. On the date of our interview, Cates was flying to Austin, Tex., to see a “specialist in human interactions.” This specialist had promised to help Cates understand the nuances of body language in social situations. Cates has been reading several works on human psychology and interactions, including “Social Intelligence,” a book that warns against the dangers of digital absorption. These studies are aimed toward the goal of achieving the “balance of life” (during our time together, Cates used this phrase more than 50 times) that will allow him to enjoy his fortune.

When asked what this balance of life might entail, Cates shrugged and said: “I don’t know. Exercise. Girls. Basically, I need to figure out how to be Daniel and not jungleman. If you draw a Venn diagram of Daniel and jungleman, you’ll see that jungleman is completely encapsulated within Daniel, but he isn’t actually Daniel. This hurts me when I meet people, because all they see is jungleman and not me. I become aloof to them. If I can achieve a balance of life and allow a balanced Daniel to shrink jungleman, I should have more success in my human interactions.”

Ashton (theAshman103) Griffin, Cates’s roommate and online rival, also cites a balance of life as the final frontier for the young poker millionaire. In mid-2009, Griffin says he won $7 million in just three months but lost three-quarters of it in the following five months. He cites that swing as a turning point in his career. “Back when I was jungleman’s age, I only saw money as a system of keeping points,” he says. “But the swings caught up to me. I couldn’t stomach being in front of the computer for six, eight hours a day and having the result be that I lost $2, $3 million. So now my primary objective is to have a healthy balance of life.”

To ensure this balance, Griffin, who is 22, has reduced his time in front of the computer to two hours a day. He spends the rest of his time wrestling for the University of Central Florida. He is also a dedicated runner. Recently, Griffin made the following bet with Haseeb (InternetPokers) Qureshi, a fellow pro and a former roommate in Cates and Griffin’s condo: If Griffin could run 70 miles on a treadmill in 24 hours, Griffin would win $300,000. If Griffin failed, he would pay out $900,000. He crossed mile 70 at the 23rd hour.

It is impossible to see Cates and Griffin sitting side by side in their apartment, backlit by three monolithic computer screens, and not wonder when Cates’s day of reckoning will come. Was the million-dollar loss to Gus Hansen the beginning of the end for jungleman12? Losing, even when it registers in cartoon animation, begins to take a psychic toll. There has never been a player, from Doc Holliday to jungleman12, who can go head to head with the pain of poker and expect to come out with a positive Expected Value.

Lillian Cates has a simpler outlook. “Gambling is gambling,” she says. “Some of those poker pros look like they have happy lives. Some of them don’t look like they’re having the greatest time. I don’t really know if all this will work out for Daniel, but I hope it will. After a while, your kid grows up, and you just hope he’s learned enough from you to have a happy life.”

During one of the long sessions in which I sat next to Cates at his computer, the action had died down, leaving us with little to do. Finding a willing opponent is sometimes hard for jungleman. To pass the time, he was chatting with a fellow online millionaire, Scott (Urnotindanger2) Palmer. The two know each other from their teenage years, when they played poker in the kitchens and living rooms of their shared not-really friends. The nickname jungleman comes from these days, referencing Cates’s frequently disheveled appearance and simian arms. For about an hour, Cates and Palmer played at lower stakes, shooting jokes back and forth. Cates, who, until then, had been distractedly answering my questions, completely shut me out and gave his full attention to his old friend. He giggled, frantically typed his responses to Palmer’s jokes, which were unfailingly about poker. Although thousands of dollars were still switching accounts, jungleman12 and Urnotindanger2 were clearly playing for fun — wild bluffs were made, called and then delightedly discussed over Skype’s chat function.

I asked Cates if he and Palmer ever caught themselves reflecting on those early games in Palmer’s kitchen, if their millions ever felt a bit unreal. He gave a sheepish grin. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” he said. “But, you know, we both worked hard.”


Jay Caspian Kang (jckang79@yahoo.com) lives in San Francisco. His first novel, "The Dead Do Not Improve," will be published by Crown in 2012. Editor: Tony Gervino (t.gervino-MagGroup@nytimes.com).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/magazi...wanted=all

Mar 27, 2011
Bubble tea fad makes comeback
Long queues, more variety, more than 500 outlets - and prices have shot up to as high as $6 a cup
By Fiona Low and Heather Marie Lee

Ten years since bubble tea became one of the biggest drink fads to hit Singapore, and more than five years after its bubble burst, the curious concoction is back.

Snaking queues and 45-minute waiting times have become regular fixtures at the outlets of at least two popular chains.

Never mind that prices of the drinks - concoctions of flavoured syrup, tea and tapioca balls - have soared to as much as $6 a pop, fans say the improved variety is what is drawing them back this time.

There are now about 10 chains and more than 500 bubble tea outlets across the island, selling the drinks in an assortment of flavours, with fancy add-ons such as pudding and jelly, as well as customisable features such as sugar levels.

Bubble tea business owners told The Sunday Times that they believe the drink is here to stay this time.

Ms Ma Ya Fen, director of one of the most popular brands here, Koi, said in Mandarin: 'Since we entered the Singapore market in 2007, we haven't done any advertising to create hype. Our customer base was built from people who tried our product and genuinely liked it.'

Koi has eight outlets, many with long queues seen snaking around their shopfronts daily.

A check by The Sunday Times at three Koi outlets on a weekday afternoon yielded an average wait of half an hour.

Bubble tea first gained popularity in Singapore about 10 years ago, with a rash of stalls opening in shopping centres and heartland estates. But the novelty died and demand waned after about three years, with prices at a few remaining outlets plummeting to as low as $1 a cup.

However, the latest range of bubble tea outlets is drawing the crowds by touting quality and variety as its selling point.

Taiwanese brand Gong Cha first opened in November 2009 and now has 13 outlets here. It claims its tea is freshly brewed every day and each batch is kept for a maximum of four hours.

Said operations director Goh Chee Cheng: 'We don't consider ourselves similar to the cheaper brands of bubble tea because they use mainly powders and syrups in their drinks to drive down costs. Our tea takes a lot more time and effort to prepare.'

Hong Kong brand Happy Lemon, which opened in March last year, counts on wacky flavours, such a green tea with rock salt and cheese mix, to score with customers.

Said operations manager Wilson Hon: 'It is a one-of-a-kind drink that perfectly balances the sweet-and-salty taste. It is one of our top sellers.' He added that 30 to 50 cups of the rock salt and cheese flavour are sold at each outlet daily.

The brand has two outlets and will be opening a third one this month.

Surprisingly, marketing experts say that the higher prices this time round may be the reason for its popularity.

Marketing professor Jin K. Han of the Lee Kong Chian School of Business at the Singapore Management University said: 'Often, consumers use price as a cue for quality, hence the reason why lower-priced bubble teas are not selling well may be partly attributable to consumers' reliance on the price-quality cue in this category.'

Associate Professor Ang Swee Hoon, from the department of marketing at the National University of Singapore's Business School, said the target group for such a product is the young.

'To them, being cool is important. And often, cool is associated with something that is higher-priced. A $1.50 drink may not have that hip cool image that they desire.'

Older brands here which have kept their prices low say they do not compromise on quality.

Mr Leslie Mun, operations director of home-grown brand Each-A-Cup, said: 'Actually there is no difference in our products, just that we are cheaper. We use the same quality ingredients.'

The brand was set up during the first wave of the bubble tea fad in 2000, and now has 42 outlets, with its fruit-flavoured teas starting at $1.50.

He said the brand, which is into its 12th year, relies on regular customers, who are mainly adults in their late 20s to 40s.

Marketing experts say this second spring for bubble tea may, like the first one, not last.

Prof Ang said: 'I think it's a food fad. We'll see another innovative beverage being introduced in the future and the demand for bubble tea will be affected.'

Freelance copywriter Wang Wei Yang, 25, has never joined in the queue for bubble tea.

'I've tried popular brands like Koi when my friends bought them. It's nice, but definitely not worth the trouble,' he said.

'I would never waste 45 minutes queueing for a drink, nor would I pay $6 for a cup when there are so many alternatives around.'

fionalow@sph.com.sg

lheather@sph.com.sg

Just found this article extremely amusing and it pokes harmless fun at our smartphone-obsessed culture! (Incidentally, I don't own a smartphone either).

Mar 24, 2011
Commentary
Silly over smartphones
Who needs high-tech handsets when a trusty old one works just fine?
By Akshita Nanda

LIVING without a smartphone is, for many, a silly choice. I beg to disagree.

My Nokia of uncertain vintage takes and makes calls, sends and receives text messages and latches tenaciously onto overseas networks in countries from France to Japan, insisting on keeping me in the loop even during holidays.

It has also gone beyond the call of communications duty in its four years of service, serving as a torch during blackouts, a paperweight on windy days, a radio and gaming centre on long bus rides and, occasionally, a stress reliever thanks to its hardy casing and the vibrate function - set appropriate mode, dial number, apply to forehead to relieve ache.

But for all its amazing functions, many people can focus only on its shortcomings, namely its inability to access the Internet and applications such as Facebook and Google Maps. The merest glimpse of its squat blue shape invites condolences from those who assume it is a temporary tool and ask if I have filed a police report or remember where I lost my 'real' phone.

Revealing that this is the actual phone I paid hard cash for and use every day inevitably results in one of two reactions: Either people roll their eyes and inch away, or they turn telephone evangelists, attempting to sway me to the smart phone side.

But the arguments they use are as fallacious as they are misleading.

Myth No. 1: Smartphone apps help us forge closer connections within our social web.

Truth: They do enable connections on social networking sites, but often make it impossible to enjoy meaningful conversations in the here and now. I have lost count of the number of times my dinner companions' voices have trailed off in the midst of making a point as their fingers seek vibrating phones to check Facebook updates, make a new move in a Scrabble game or quickly send off a Twitter chain message to a dozen other users.

Arguably, cellphones have divided attention and been a touchy subject for Miss Manners since mobile phone inventor Martin Cooper used the first Motorola to make a victory call to a rival researcher in 1973, but current smartphone technology is clearly enabling bad behaviour.

Ah, but after all, say smartphone supporters, users are clearly accessing information vital to their daily lives.

That brings me to Myth No. 2. My four-year-old cellphone may not connect to Twitter, but it does allow me to access real-time movie schedules, stock market reports, weather forecasts and horoscopes. In the roughly 1,400 days these functions have been available to me, I have needed to use them exactly once - for the purposes of this article, to check that they still work.

Certainly, in some countries, it does help to know when it is likely to rain or snow, so that one can be prepared with the appropriate gear. In Singapore, with its cycle of hot-wet, wet-wet and hot-humid seasons, I will take my chances - or just look out of the window before leaving a building.

Some colleagues argue the value of GPS and Google Maps, which safely guide them to assignments in the wilderness of Tuas. I have found that checking the street directory (2008 print edition or online) before setting out works well enough.

I will admit that instant alerts may be useful when it comes to breaking news. Why, then, are they mostly known for spreading panic?

Just last week, I received about 20 text messages and Twitter alerts from friends warning me to eat iodine tablets and stay out of the rain before the nuclear fug from Japan engulfs South-east Asia. The fake message, purportedly from the BBC, apparently caused such panic in the Philippines that the government and the British news agency had to issue denials.

The message reached me via friends in India and Singapore, most of whom have more degrees than I do and are professionals in fields such as engineering, education and environmental science. Yet their reaction to a suspect piece of information was not to use their smartphone's Web capability to check back with the primary sources, but to forward it on hastily.

Does this mean that smart technology is no match for human stupidity? I fear it is something worse. I think smartphone technology actually erodes brain cells and fosters unthinking behaviour.

Just take Completely Misleading Myth No. 3: Smartphone apps make life more convenient.

In my experience, being able to book movie tickets or taxis via smartphone apps is not necessarily more convenient than phoning a hotline. Given the average connection speed and high demand, my friends have saved barely seconds when calling for taxis.

I love technology when it actually makes life easier, and certainly online movie booking and theatre ticketing hotlines get two thumbs up. I book most tickets on a computer or via phone, but on the rare occasion when the decision is made to catch a show impromptu, does it make sense to stand 10 steps away from the ticketing counter, desperately thumbing the movie app icon instead of waiting patiently in an ever-shortening queue?

It seems that smartphone technology is so much fun that the cool factor replaces common sense.

Perhaps texting and tweeting can get important messages across to millions of minds, but why check the list of eateries at a mall on a smartphone instead of walking a few metres to read the store directory or walking past the restaurants to see first-hand if the flavours appeal?

I fear we are forcing ourselves to cut up the world into bite-sized chunks for other people to digest instead of enjoying our lives to the fullest. Why else are users not looking at each other during meals, unless it is to exchange grins after photographing their meals and instantly updating their food blogs?

That is one reason I am dreading 2015, when it is predicted that advanced capability phones will drive all stolid 'feature' phones into extinction.

Smartphone technology might soon be the cleverest thing around. It has already made many of my acquaintances a lot sillier.

akshitan@sph.com.sg

Shoes, anyone?

Mar 20, 2011
Charles & Keith and LVMH become sole mates
Homegrown shoe retailer sells 20% stake for more than $30m and access to branding expertise of owner of top fashion labels
By Robin Chan

It's a fairy tale that has seen two brothers go from Ang Mo Kio to Paris.

Charles & Keith, the once-humble local shoe retailer, is now partly owned by French luxury giant Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH).

The Wong brothers, who own the company, have sold a 20 per cent stake to L Capital Asia, the private equity arm of LVMH, for more than $30 million, sources told The Sunday Times.

The deal, which values the company at close to $200 million, was completed in November after LCapital fought off a slew of rival suitors which included other private equity funds, high net worth investors and even a manufacturing firm.

The feeding frenzy is testament to the growth of the local firm, which has shot to prominence since brothers Charles Wong, 37, and his brother Keith, 35, opened their first store in Amara Hotel in 1996.

But the deal is more than just about the money, said the elder Mr Wong, the chief executive, confirming the deal to The Sunday Times from Shanghai, where he is now based. The younger Mr Wong is the chief operating officer and designs the shoes.

It will give Charles & Keith access to the branding expertise of LVMH, owner of the world's top fashion labels including Marc Jacobs, Dior and Givenchy, and allow the firm to benefit from being taken under the wing of LVMH as it expands around the globe.

The company wants to conquer the United States, China, India and Western Europe. It already has 229 stores across mainly Asia and the Middle East under its Charles & Keith and Pedro brands.

Charles & Keith sells women's shoes while Pedro carries footwear for both men and women.

Mr Wong said he was happy with the deal, which took a long time to come together.

'There have been a lot of companies talking to us and we spent a lot of time considering all the options. We were definitely reluctant to sell the stake, but in the end it was more for the company to grow to the next level. We were looking mainly at knowledge transfer and for someone to help us understand certain markets deeper.

'We are looking at the bigger picture and how we can grow our company's revenue to three to five times what it was last year in a short time. We hope we can, through them, expand, improve and learn. That's the main reason we let them have the stake.'

Recounting events of last year, chief financial officer Dicky Koh said the brothers had been happy the business was running at a good speed - it has grown at a compounded annual rate of 28 per cent for the past decade.

'But L Capital wanted to come in and add that turbo, to help us grow even faster,' he said.

'They already knew that if they came in, even without doing anything, they would be able to benefit just as a pure financial investor. But they also had the expertise and people that can help us. That was the kind of fit we were looking at.'

In the end, it was the promise of the chance to conquer China that appeared to have swung the deal.

Mr Wong had witnessed the worldwide success of Sephora, a global women's cosmetics chain owned by LVMH, especially in China, and felt that Charles & Keith could learn from Sephora's growth strategy.

He has made it his personal mission to succeed in China and moved there permanently to oversee the business 11/2 years ago.

There are now six Charles & Keith stores in Shanghai, although they are not yet profitable, Mr Koh said.

Charles & Keith wants to open 100 stores there in the next five years. It plans to own all the stores, as its does the stores in Singapore. The company franchises its stores everywhere else.

What was key is LVMH's connections with landlords in China, Mr Koh said.

'They can put us at the negotiating table and say that we have all these brands under our portfolio, including Charles & Keith, and this will help us secure a good rate.'

Recently, the company also went with people from LVMH to meet potential partners in the US, a market it has not yet ventured into, said Mr Wong.

Charles & Keith will also leverage on its new owners and send staff to Paris, or get trainers to come to Singapore, so they can attend marketing and visual branding courses that will help in-store display concepts and marketing campaigns.

The deal was struck after a nine-month-long pursuit led by Mr Ravi Thakran, managing partner of LCapital Asia. They were introduced by PrimePartners Corporate Finance chairman Quek Peck Lim, a veteran banker. It almost fell through at some points, when the brothers got cold feet because of the emotional attachment to the company they had built from scratch, and also over the uncertainty of bringing in a fund with a short-term investment horizon of just four to five years.

Moreover, the brothers did not want to sell, Mr Koh said, because they did not need the money.

But Mr Thakran persevered. He assured the brothers that the investment was genuine and to help the firm grow in the long run.

Meetings took place in Paris, Singapore and China, and Mr Koh and the Wongs met Mr Daniel Piette, head of investment funds and managing partner and chairman of L Capital Management, as well as Mr Andrew Wu, LVMH's China director. Mr Wong also spoke frequently with Mr Jacques Levy, the former president and chief executive of Sephora Worldwide.

Eventually, Charles & Keith came up with a 'wishlist' of what it wanted from its new partners. It would receive training from LVMH and get LVMH senior management on its board.

That was how it was agreed that one board seat was to go to Mr Levy, who unfortunately resigned last week from LVMH to take up a position as adviser to Guess founder Paul Marciano. Mr Wong could not comment on whether or not Mr Levy would remain on the Charles & Keith board.

With the French luxury giant taking the company under its wing, will Charles & Keith still retain its value-for-money image?

Mr Wong said that while it is true that the company is looking to slowly move its branding more upmarket, it will always produce affordable shoes for the masses.

'(Spanish clothing retailer) Zara is a very good name for that - it is fast fashion and affordable. We want to make sure that our consumers see our brand as high fashion and also suitable for them,' he said.

The company will also remain separate from LVMH's stable of designer brands.

'We don't want to ride on that brand. We want to maintain our DNA in terms of how we grow our two brands. We don't see the need to associate, not even with Sephora,' Mr Koh said.

As for what happens after LVMH's fund exits its investment, Mr Koh said the company will probably look to either list on a stock exchange or buy back the shares.

'We feel that if we are able to capture as much value-add from them within these next five years, then it is mission accomplished for us.'

He added: 'Of course as we grow to a good size, probably, an IPO (initial public offering) could be a good option for us. But we are not looking at that for now. There is still a lot of room for us to grow.'

Mr Wong said: 'My goal is to make sure that our brand is in all countries and cities, to make this a true global brand from Singapore.'

chanckr@sph.com.sg

Mar 19, 2011
SMS losing ground to smartphone apps
Users switch as apps are better value, more convenient, fun to use
By Irene Tham

THE short message is this: Growth in SMS traffic is slowing.

The reason? More people now own smartphones, which have applications, or apps, allowing them to contact their friends and family in other ways.

Take business development director Aaron Koh, 34, who is just as likely to use the Facebook app on his HTC Wildfire smartphone to connect with pals.

He also uses an app called WhatsApp Messenger to send text messages as the service is free and there is no limit on the number sent.

Market research firm IDC said the slower growth of SMS traffic can be traced to the rising popularity of smartphones and their apps.

The Infocomm Development Authority started tracking SMS growth from 2004. There was strong double-digit growth every year - except in one year. Growth peaked at 70 per cent in 2008. After that, it tapered off as smartphones started hooking consumers.

Last year, two-thirds of the phones sold here were smartphones, said IDC, compared with one-third in 2009.

More consumers are migrating to smartphones for Internet access on the go and the fact that they are highly subsidised by telcos. They also come bundled with data plans.

'People are already paying for the data services. Why not use them?' said

Ms Melissa Chau, research manager of client devices at IDC Asia/Pacific.

For instance, SingTel's basic 3G Flexi Lite plan costs $39 a month, with 12GB of free data use for all 3G phone models.

Ms Chau noted that smartphone apps are also more fun to use and more intuitive than SMS. These include social networking tools Facebook and Twitter, and WhatsApp Messenger.

Consumers can take a photo with the camera on their phones and post it on their Facebook pages. They can also chat with their friends on social networks.

Ms Chau expects SMS to continue losing its shine to smartphone apps, even though most phone plans come with at least 500 free SMSes. Each additional SMS costs about five cents.

By 2015, when more than 90 per cent of the phones sold here are expected to be smartphones, SMS traffic will start to decline, Ms Chau predicts.

Still, the current SMS traffic is not to be sniffed at. Last December, an average of 2.4 billion SMSes were sent and received over the SingTel, StarHub and M1 networks.

The Straits Times understands that the SMS volume in recent years includes more messages sent by companies to consumers.

These include bank advertisements for loans, alerts about condominium launches from property agents, and promotions announced by retailers when consumers are in the vicinity.

Social worker Paul Teo, 38, said he gets at least five such promotional messages daily.

Civil servant Pauline Tan, 36, said up to 50 per cent of the SMSes she gets are spam.

'I've been getting a lot of property SMSes lately. It's irritating,' she added.

itham@sph.com.sg

Mar 18, 2011
Quake may rattle insurance premiums
Global reinsurers, set to be hit by huge claims from Japan disaster, may drive up rates here
By Lorna Tan, Senior Correspondent

PREMIUMS for property-related insurance policies in Singapore - including home, fire, car and various types of business insurance - might all rise as a result of Japan's unfolding disaster.

But the local industry says it is too early to tell just when - and by how much - the premiums could increase.

A key industry body says the reason for possible hikes is that global reinsurers, which effectively offer insurance to insurers, are set to be hit by huge claims from those affected by Japan's disaster.

These reinsurers could well drive up the rates they charge insurers to spread the risk - and this could cascade down to premiums for policies in Singapore, as in other insurance markets.

The warning came from the General Insurance Association of Singapore (GIA) during a briefing yesterday.

Policies likely to be affected are property insurance, which includes fire insurance, home insurance and business interruption insurance. The other major category affected is casualty cover protecting a person or business against legal liability for losses caused by injury to other people or damage to their property.

GIA committee member Terence Tan said premium hikes for these types of insurance are on the cards if global reinsurers - hit by earthquake-related losses - decide to raise their premium rates when they are up for renewal. This means higher premiums for policyholders unless insurers opt to absorb the increases.

'The global reinsurers provide capacity and protection for all insurers... When the cost of capacity increases, the cost of protection will increase. How much is a big question mark,' he said.

Each general insurer strikes a deal on its reinsurance rate on a different date, though some premium rises may occur as early as this year, he said.

When contacted, insurers such as Income, the NTUC insurance cooperative, said it is too early to ascertain the full impact of Japan's disaster on the industry.

That factor aside, the GIA said yesterday that motor premiums, which have been rising as a result of high claims and greater vehicle numbers, are set to keep increasing, though at a more gradual pace.

GIA president Derek Teo blames the rise partly on last year's higher motor underwriting losses - $48.9 million, up from a $44.5 million loss in 2009. The loss came despite motor premiums rising 9 per cent to $1.04 billion, in part due to last year's record 945,829 vehicles.

He said one reason for last year's escalating motor losses was the damage sustained in two major floods. They had led to 428 motor claims, which had translated into an estimated loss of $11.6 million.

A worrying trend highlighted by the GIA was a rise in personal injuries reported especially among young drivers under 25. This group of drivers can expect a higher premium hike upon renewal.

On a positive note for the industry, the motor loss ratio improved to 73.7 per cent last year from 75.3 per cent - so for every dollar of earned premiums, 73.7 cents was paid out in claims last year.

According to the GIA, the average premium rose to $1,100 last year, a rise of 6.5 per cent from 2009 - lower than the 20 per cent rise in 2009 from 2008 which saw a record motor loss of $214 million.

As a whole, the general insurance industry posted robust growth last year, climbing 3.7 per cent to $3.03 billion, boosted by strong economic growth.

The industry's underwriting profits rose 4.4 per cent to $198.1 million while its total incurred loss ratio improved by 0.8 per cent to 57.6 per cent last year.

All classes of businesses, except marine cargo and health insurance, registered premium growth led by a 10 per cent rise in the personal accident class.

Fire insurance was profitable, with 4 per cent growth in earned premiums to $131 million last year. Underwriting profit rose 21 per cent to $62.9 million.

Work injury compensation insurance made a strong turnaround with an underwriting profit of $5 million last year, reversing an underwriting loss of $12.3 million in 2009.

Premium growth in health insurance was flat last year, on the back of a 56 per cent slump in underwriting profit to $4.6 million. The GIA attributed this to the competition among the life and general insurers for health insurance business.

lorna@sph.com.sg

I think this topic is sorely lacking so.........

My Modus Operandi (MO) dictates that I should start working bottom ups approach on the Japanese stocks.......especially if the nuclear crisis goes out of control....

Basically to buy when there is blood on the street even when the blood is mine......

However, I didnt pen my own MO to be used when thousands died/missing....Think ethics (eg, many people affected by the earthquake need the money, and they are selling cheap, and you are taking advantage of it........)

I think many investors have their eyes on Japan right now.........So let me start the ball rolling by asking this question:

If the nuclear crisis deepens, will you or will you not take advantage of the situation and invest in japanese stocks?