Popular Holdings

[freedom]

Popular's "8 Raja" has been launched for more than 1 year, so far none of its 26 units sold. the break-even price should be around 1200psf. are those vested worry a bit about it with current further cooling measures?

[dydx]

In the worst-case scenario - i.e. the market becomes so bad that Popular can't even sell a single unit of "8 Raja" (with a total of 26 units) above its estimated break-even cost of $1,200 psf, after the project is completed - the external auditors will require Popular to make an accounting provision on the project based on what is considered a fair written down value in their opinion, backed by inputs from one or more external professional valuers.

Based on Popular's rock-solid B/S and large net cash reserve, and the strong operating cash generation from its retail and publishing activities, the company can easily hold on to "8 Raja" - a small project! - indefinitely and just rent out the units until the property market recovers.

Frankly, I won't lose any sleep on this, and I think it is still reasonable to expect Popular to sell, given enough time, all the 26 units in "8 Raja" and make a profit form the project, just like what the company has done in both "1 Robin" and "18 Shelford”.

I am looking forward to collect the $0.005/share Interim dividend on 31Jan12.

[changwk]

hi,

to add, 16/19 units of 18 Shelford Road has been sold.
3 units were sold in Oct itself
- 2.3 mil at 1900 per sq ft
- 3.967 mil at 1900 per sq ft
- 4mil at 1916 per sq ft

so there are 3 units of 18 Shelford Road left to be sold.

[axt]

Today Popular closed at 0.176 up from 0.163 with high volume of 3.536m. Anyone here know whats happening?

[karlmarx]

several small cap stocks are being bought up in huge quantities, over the past few sessions.

i don't think there is anything happening with regards to popular.

beware of being sucked into the market hype.

[pianist]

recent news article on closure of harris give me a stalk reminder whenever i wanna to up stake in this counter..

[karlmarx]

harris' contribution to the group's bottom line is tiny compared to its core businesses: retailing and publishing. from an earnings and net asset valuation perspective, popular is attractive.

nevertheless, every business has its strengths and shortcomings. we should not let these 'strengths and shortcomings' overly influence our valuation of these businesses.

every 'good' or 'lousy' business is worth something. has the market price of popular reached your own assessment of its intrinsic value?

[dydx]

Against Popular's latest NAV/share of $0.2319 (as at 30Oct11, adjusting for the $0.005/share Interim dividend paid on 31Jan12), the last done share price of $0.176 is still at a 24.1% discount. Why should a well-established and profitable business which consistently pays out good dividends twice-a-year be priced below its NAV?

We have to also bear in mind that the coming Q3 (ended 31Jan12) results should be good, as Q3 captures the seasonally strongest back-to-school sales/business volume (textbooks, stationery, etc.) in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Take a good look at the last Q3/FY11 results announcement.....
http://info.sgx.com/webcoranncatth.nsf/V...00032F3D6/$file/PHL_3Qresults.pdf?openelement
you will know what I mean.

Based on the better results achieved for 1H/FY12....
http://info.sgx.com/webcorannc.nsf/Annou...endocument
I think Popular is poised to deliver a healthy profit increase in FY12.

[violinist]

Popular traded 2 million shares (up) this morning, against a 3 month avg of 220k shares!
I don't think it's dydx's words.

[dydx]

Just my conjecture - based on the sharp rise in the share price yesterday (6Feb12) and strong support of the share price today, and the unusually high volume done yesterday and especially today (so far 15.3m shares), I suspect an institutional investor or fund could be buying/accumulating Popular. What do fellow forumers think?