Popular Holdings

.....and Popular yesterday (4Jan13, Friday) continued to buy back more shares - another 1,019,000 shares at $0.245/share.....
http://info.sgx.com/webcorannc.nsf/Annou...endocument
This is the 2nd-time in the first 3 market-days in this new year of 2013!

I wonder what Chou Cheng Ngok is trying to tell us the public shareholders and potential investors by this corporate action?

what happened to the younger chou?

is he still involved in the business?

(05-01-2013, 08:57 AM)pianist Wrote: what happened to the younger chou?

is he still involved in the business?

Wayne Chou has resigned from his post as Non-Independent Non-Executive Director and a Member of the Audit Committee about 1 year ago.

Resignation Annoucement

24.5 cents open market buying . this is pretty close to its NAV of 25 cents...

(05-01-2013, 08:50 AM)dydx Wrote: .....and Popular yesterday (4Jan13, Friday) continued to buy back more shares - another 1,019,000 shares at $0.245/share.....
http://info.sgx.com/webcorannc.nsf/Annou...endocument
This is the 2nd-time in the first 3 market-days in this new year of 2013!

I wonder what Chou Cheng Ngok is trying to tell us the public shareholders and potential investors by this corporate action?

(05-01-2013, 08:50 AM)dydx Wrote: .....and Popular yesterday (4Jan13, Friday) continued to buy back more shares - another 1,019,000 shares at $0.245/share.....
http://info.sgx.com/webcorannc.nsf/Annou...endocument
This is the 2nd-time in the first 3 market-days in this new year of 2013!

I wonder what Chou Cheng Ngok is trying to tell us the public shareholders and potential investors by this corporate action?

After 3 shares buy back, his stake has risen from 57.75% to 58.46%. If and when the full 10% of shares buy-back is completed, his stake will be 64.17%. So, he must be saying, "Hey! I should have thought of this earlier... No need to put in any effort and no need to come up with a single cent! Muhahahaha!!! "

I thought share buy back is good for investor in general? It pushes up th NAV and increase dividend distribution per share.

when a company makes a profit they can use the cash in many ways
like expanding business
paying dividends
keeping the cash
or buying back their own shares

Generally I would like to company to buy back their shares if its cheap
if the shares are expensive, I would rather the company pay me dividends instead

hope this helps you

Today (7Jan13), Popular bought back another 3,021,000 shares, all at $0.25/share.....
http://info.sgx.com/webcorannc.nsf/Annou...endocument
This makes a total 14,242,000 shares, or 1.693% of total issued shares, purchased in just 4 days since the first purchase on 20Dec12. Impressive!

dydx

from a value perspective, could you share how much higher must the share price of popular bookstore goes up before it becomes too expensive ? Like Warren Buffet says - is there a margin of safety ?
thanks a lot !

(07-01-2013, 07:48 PM)health=wealth Wrote: from a value perspective, could you share how much higher must the share price of popular bookstore goes up before it becomes too expensive ? Like Warren Buffet says - is there a margin of safety ?
thanks a lot !

Rationally speaking, the fair intrinsic value of a well-established and profitable business group like Popular should be at a decent premium above its NAV, the latest (as at 31Oct12) of which stood at $0.2517/share.

Based on Popular's lastest (as at 7Jan13) 826.864m outstanding issued shares and the last done share price of $0.25, market cap. now stands at $206.72m. Is this adequate or too high for a sustainable business group which derives an annual revenue of close to $550.0m and PBT in excess of $30.0m? (Note: both figures not counting contributions from the Property Div.) Also, we must not forget in the latest 31Oct12 B/S Popular has a net cash reserve of $84.59m - equivalent to some $0.10/share.

So I would venture to say that Popular's group business should have a fair intrinsic value in excess of $350.0m, or at least $0.423/share. This means that at the last done share price of $0.25, Mr Market is now attaching a value pegged at 59.1% of my fair value estimate. But I must caution here that forumers must always remember that they are betting or investing at their own risk, and that Mr Market is irrational at most times and would likely support such a higher valuation in a bull-run or during short periods of speculative frenzy or in a GO situation.