Popular Holdings

[a74henry]

Impressive holding power. The rights issue definitely benefited existing shareholders who see long term value in Popular.

[karlmarx]

Why is the buyer in such a hurry to accumulate so aggressively?

I thought this appears to be an anticipation of privatisation efforts by mr chou. The run-up in price seems to have discouraged popular from performing more share buy backs. Perhaps this may motivate mr chou to launch an offer sooner rather than later. After all, he has been buying back shares on his personal account, and the company's account, for the past year.

I will be surprised if the q3 results surprise on the upside.

[a74henry]

Privatisation? I hope not.

It has been giving me a good dividend yield with capital appreciation.

[KopiKat]

Why is the buyer in such a hurry to accumulate so aggressively?

I thought this appears to be an anticipation of privatisation efforts by mr chou. The run-up in price seems to have discouraged popular from performing more share buy backs. Perhaps this may motivate mr chou to launch an offer sooner rather than later. After all, he has been buying back shares on his personal account, and the company's account, for the past year.

I will be surprised if the q3 results surprise on the upside.

IIRC, there's a 30-days period before the release of quarterly results where they can't do any shares transactions.

As for the G.O. which many of us were speculating way back when it was closer to 20ct (which also motivated us to accumulate like crazy back then..), current close of 30.5ct is already >25% above NAV or >50% above the price back then. To be honest, it's higher than my speculated G.O. price back then...Seems so long ago, but only less than a year back.....

As for the upcoming Q3 results, IMO, their Property segment remains the joker in the pack. From Q2, there were $75M in Devt Property (8Raja + Purmei?) + $12M in Property Held for Sale (18 Shelford). That'd add a lot to the Cash if they managed to sell... But, with the 7th Cooling Measure, we can only curse their bad timing if they'd not managed to sell any (din see any caveats lodged in URA site) or to finally make some good profits...

[karlmarx]

You're right. The last time they bought back share was 30 days from 15 march! Will they continue buying back again once results are released?

I saw 4 units of 18 shelford sold during oct and nov, which should be accounted for in q3's results. 8 raja only top in 30 June so it is still quite some time until we will get to see some profit from it. As for purmei, have they started construction?

I think popular's current market value is still lagging intrinsic value by a fair bit, and is not excessive how ever you look at it. If popular trades at a p/e of 20ish, then it's certainly time to look for other opportunities.

[KopiKat]

I saw 4 units of 18 shelford sold during oct and nov, which should be accounted for in q3's results.

Care to share where you saw the data? I checked URA site but didn't see any caveats lodged since Sep-12 for 1 unit (already recognised in Q2 results). I was thinking of calling Popular Land to check but didn't get around to doing that...lazy...

If what you saw is correct, then they'd have cleared the last units of 18 Shelford and Q3 results will likely be better than my expectation. For reference, last Q3, they sold 2 units.

[karlmarx]

My mistake. That was 2011! Sorry for the false alarm. Tired eyes... ;(

Looks like high end properties are not in demand right now. Just like sc global. This is worrying for popular.

[KopiKat]

Thanks for the clarification.

In that case, assuming the same higher expenses of 1H + no sale of properties, my crystal ball says EPS closer to 1ct vs 1.44ct last year. We really need Malaysia Boleh! more than ever now....

[karlmarx]

I'll keep my fingers crossed. Lets see how the market performs in the coming week.

[a74henry]

What is the intrinsic value for Popular and how do you calculate it?