(30-10-2012, 02:08 PM)propertyinvestor Wrote: Our valued Forum member cheeki will be updating you shortly on what transpired at the AGM. 
The following is what I had for Wing Tai AGM 2012:
AGM 2012
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General: Wing Tai Chairman was cautious on market sensitive information and did not divulge much information. Hence, there were not much information disclosed during the AGM. Example of information he considered 'sensitive' are which Quarter their residential projects TOP date and estimated selling price and expected profit margin for Old Tampinese 103 and 105 residential project.
Wing Tai hold AGM in Hotel instead of its own premises because all the spaces in Wing Tai's premises are leased out.Furthermore, there is no big enough conference room to hold AGM of this capacity.
Chairman will look into the problems of insufficient hard copy annual reports available for shareholders during the AGM as well as not sending to shareholder before the AGM Date. As a result, some of the shareholders requested chairman to do company updates presentation in the Next AGM. As usual the chairman will consider their request.
Chairman highlighted that the price for printing a copy of AR is $15/=, with total number of shareholders for wing tai it will cost S$200K just to print/distribute AR for shareholder.
Chairman said the company has an unofficial policy of approximately 30% payout ratio but do not want to make public.
The company did not buyback its shares during the last financial year when the share price is sub $1 for 2 reasons. Number 1, the company already has large enough treasury shares of around 12 million shares and 2: Share buyback might trigger Takeover SGX rules for major shareholder prior the successful partial GO by the Ascend Capital Limited (Cheng Brothers).
Update for Singapore development projects Sale status:
Helios Residences - 30 units unsold out of 140 units
Belle Vue Residence - 10 units unsold out of 176 units
L'viv - 87% sold out of 147 units
Foresque Residence - 400 Sold out of 496 units
Malaysia residential project Verticas Residences are 70% sold and will be obtaining TOP in 1 or 2 months time.
Wing Tai plan to hold on to their singapore high end luxurious projects at Ardmore parks.The large cash holding in their balance sheet enable them to "hold these properties until the market recover". Hence, the strategy is to hold on to them until high end market recovered.
When esquire about the penalty charges 2 years after TOP, Chairman does not seem too concern about the charges and very likely the company will seek for extending the 2 years period.
Wing Tai associated company for retails are Uniqlo and G2000 which wing tai has 49% and 45% shares respectively. During 2012, the business for Uniqlo are doing extremely well and hence resulted in the increase in profitability from 2.45 mil to 8.14 mil. Wing Tai Retail biz has been growing at an average of 20% for the last few years. There are currently 140 retail store in Singapore and 80 Retail Store in Malaysia.
Wing tai will be celebrating its 50 years anniversary on 9 of August (national Day).There is a request for Wing Tai to invite the shareholder for the party. (unlikely to happen though, there are currently 13,000+ shareholders.)
property markets:
In order to protect the company for the future uncertainty and seize opportunity when arrived, the company choose to be prudent by holding large cash
(800mil in FY2012) in order to weather the coming crisis and wait out for opportunity. In September 2012, the company see the opportunity of huge liquidity
and issued a S$100 million bond with interest rate of 4.5%. This issues is 16X oversubscribed. This attractive bond issues with 10 years maturity was never
happen to SGX listed property company.
In Singapore, Government is trying to cool the property market by increasing the supply of the land for the residential properties. The residential property
prices Instead of falling, it went up.
The Singapore mass market, EC segment or upgraded market residential property is currently over prices and is in danger of correction. That's why Wing Tai
is trying to sell of their upgraded project Foresque Residence as soon as possible.
The middle tier and luxury market segments are still reasonably price as has not gone up much. The current price has not breach the previous high. Chairman
quoted the property price at River Valley is price(1700 psf) at almost the same as Bishan Sky Habit project. This is the reason why Wing Tai goes in to bid the residential land in Prince Charles. Furthermore, Price Charles land is very near to high end residential of Bishopgate.
Malaysia property market is the cheapest in SEA. The high end property is priced at 25% (e.g. Le Nouvel Malaysia price at RM3000 psf) compared to Singapore.
In the 80's, the price of residential property for Singapore and Malaysia is on par. The low price of residential property is malaysia is probably due to the government policy. Malaysia property market has a lot of potential.
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