Popular Holdings

Checked my bank account this morning and noted a nice credit from Popular's $0.006/share Final dividend for FY11 (ended 30Apr11). Feeling great!

Following the positive Q1 (ended 31Jul11) results....
http://info.sgx.com/webcoranncatth.nsf/V...60033CE8A/$file/PopularHoldingsLimited_1Q2012Results.pdf?openelement
I now look forward to (1) the coming Q2/1H results expected by 15Dec11; and (2) the Interim dividend for FY12 (last FY11: $0.004/share, paid 25Feb11) which is usually payable in Feb.

Meanwhile, Popular announced yesterday that the company had successfully acquired the freehold land located at 524 Kampong Bahru Road, Singapore 099455 together with the building thereon known as Permai Court, at a total purchase consideration of S$20.25m....
http://info.sgx.com/webcoranncatth.nsf/V...3003588EC/$file/Acquisition_of_Land_and_Permai_Court.pdf?openelement

This shall be Popular's 4th residential property development project. More info on the property.....
http://www.streetdirectory.com/asia_trav...te_5666/5/

Not sure how many other people saw the news but Page One (at Vivocity) appears to be on the way out. I saw, from a friend's Facebook status, that Big Bookshop (at Clementi) is closing down too.

Now, the question is: How will Popular perform with less competitors around? Will their book retailing business be able to evolve in time to avoid being swallowed up by the inevitable decline of the brick and mortar book retailing business?

---

Sorry, I couldn't find the full article.

Exit: Page One?
Rising rents, e-retailers putting the squeeze on bookshops

By Huang Lijie

For book lovers and buyers, the story of the struggles that bookstores in Singapore face has not made for happy reading.

American bookstore chain Borders exited the scene last month and home-grown art and design bookshop Page One could be next.

It may shutter its VivoCity outlet next March even as the company, with branches in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, is scheduled to open another two in Beijing in the coming months.

the headline caught my eye but i didn't have time to read the rest of the article.

popular sells books that has a market for them. bestsellers, classics, and educational stuff. the variety offered by page one and borders has a smaller market of customers; most of whom are savvy enough to buy the 'specialised' books they're looking for at a cheaper price online. i bought all my used academic books for about us$2 online. including shipping the books costs an average of s$8. a new one from borders or page one -- if they sell them -- costs s$35-s$50. let's not forget digital books being a cheaper alternative too (of course, if you try to sell digital business times for us$0.99, you probably wouldn't do too well). books that offer better value-for-money will continue to move.

the closure of these bookstores offering variety is unlikely to boost popular's business in a significant way. but yes, now everyone has to go to popular to buy 'rich dad poor dad', and what have you.

(17-10-2011, 09:09 PM)kazukirai Wrote: Not sure how many other people saw the news but Page One (at Vivocity) appears to be on the way out. I saw, from a friend's Facebook status, that Big Bookshop (at Clementi) is closing down too.

They are not alone. Funan Computer Book Centre closed down 2 months back, and Clementi Book Store (the one that sells tertiary text books) will close end of this month.

Book retailing is going down the same path as music retailing (rmbr Sembawang Music?).

Quote:How will Popular perform with less competitors around?

A lack of competition isn't necessarily a good thing. It can mean that the market is drying up.

I don't think Page One, Funan Computer Book Centre and Clementi Book Store have a property development arm. Perhaps the leopard has gradually changed its spots and transformed into another animal?

(18-10-2011, 07:21 PM)wsreader Wrote: I don't think Page One, Funan Computer Book Centre and Clementi Book Store have a property development arm. Perhaps the leopard has gradually changed its spots and transformed into another animal?

But going through their past annual reports, it seems that the net profit margin for the Retail segment hasn't dipped at all. And Sales for the segment have improved quite a bit over the years (from '04: 288mil through '06: 314mil to '11: 438mil). Inventory turnover and Receivables have remained at roughly the same levels through the years so it doesn't look like they're channel stuffing.

So, I'm still wondering how come the retail segment which killed off Borders, Page One and the likes while Popular's retail segment (which is it's largest revenue contributor) has been doing relatively much better off through the years.

Or perhaps, it's testament to their mindshare (after all, when you think of a bookshop that can be found everywhere in SG, not sure about their ops in M'sia and Greater China, which other bookshop do you think of?) but unfortunately this mindshare is only keeping them alive because of the brutal industry shift rather than return the supernormal profits that mindshare normally does.

(btw, I should declare- Vested)

(18-10-2011, 08:19 PM)kazukirai Wrote:

(18-10-2011, 07:21 PM)wsreader Wrote: I don't think Page One, Funan Computer Book Centre and Clementi Book Store have a property development arm. Perhaps the leopard has gradually changed its spots and transformed into another animal?

But going through their past annual reports, it seems that the net profit margin for the Retail segment hasn't dipped at all. And Sales for the segment have improved quite a bit over the years (from '04: 288mil through '06: 314mil to '11: 438mil). Inventory turnover and Receivables have remained at roughly the same levels through the years so it doesn't look like they're channel stuffing.

So, I'm still wondering how come the retail segment which killed off Borders, Page One and the likes while Popular's retail segment (which is it's largest revenue contributor) has been doing relatively much better off through the years.

Or perhaps, it's testament to their mindshare (after all, when you think of a bookshop that can be found everywhere in SG, not sure about their ops in M'sia and Greater China, which other bookshop do you think of?) but unfortunately this mindshare is only keeping them alive because of the brutal industry shift rather than return the supernormal profits that mindshare normally does.

(btw, I should declare- Vested)

If you have school going kids, the answer may be quite obvious. If not, just walk into any Popular store located in the suburbs and you'll notice that ~75% of the space are utilised for items targetted at school kids (from pre-school to pre-U). You'll see text books, assessment books, story books, reference books, stationery,... Only a small area is used for more adults oriented books ie. best sellers, self-help,...

In this huge niche (school kids), I don't see any strong competitors. Competitors are the smaller mom-n-pop book shops (selling mostly stationery), school book shops (too small to have variety and even prices of text books may be more expensive), push carts (selling assessment papers), none of which are big enough to be a threat.

Note : Not vested as I was put off by their diversifying into Property Development a few years back

10yrs later every sch will be using ipad 5 to replace paper.
That include home and tution ctr.
Lets hope by then it has enough to become a full pledge property developer.

Not vested

that could very well happen. but i doubt it will take place, at least in the next five years.

10 years ago, numerous commentators spoke on the PC replacing the textbook in the classroom. the furthest the IT revolution went into education was to have IT lessons in IT labs.

new tech will always be a threat to old tech. but when will we have a new tech that can perform better than your traditional pen & paper, as a medium of learning?

if such a tech exists, how much will it cost? there are about 350 school with about 530,000 students. there are huge infrastructure and maintenance costs involved.

tech changes every now and then. for a government to move towards a radical medium of learning where implementation costs involving money and time are astronomical, requires the government to take a big risks. which makes such decisions difficult. what if the vendor goes bust and no longer supports the system? what if a better tech emerges? computerizing the work of 30,000 teachers is different from computerizing the work of 530,000 students.

if a new IT tech costs not much more than textbooks and pens, and allows for effective and efficient classroom learning, then i believe this is possible. after all, tech often advance in ways that surprises us.

(19-10-2011, 03:21 PM)WolfT Wrote: 10yrs later every sch will be using ipad 5 to replace paper.
That include home and tution ctr.
Lets hope by then it has enough to become a full pledge property developer.

Not vested

Be it paper or computer, someone still need to provide the content. Don't forget that Popular is not just a books retailer, it also has a publishing arm, and doing quite well too. Also, Popular has presence in many countries other than Singapore, some are still developing. So not all countries will be able to advance at the same pace.

Of course, many things can happen in 10 years time. It may be that by then all schools will be using IPAD, but this trend could also turn out to be an opportunity for Popular.