Tat Hong Holdings Limited

[camelking]

We refer to our announcement no. 00098 made on March 7, 2012.

The Company wishes to clarify that the circumstances giving rise to the change in Mr Ng Chwee Cheng's interest in Tat Hong Holdings Ltd from 12.54% to 10.43% should be read as "Open Market Sale" instead of "Open Market Purchase".

For and on behalf of the Board
Lional Tseng
Group Chief Financial Controller/Company Secretary

Now, this is unprofessional....took them one week to discover...
PLUS : another mistake - I thought Lional Tseng is the Group CFO...

[yogi]

I characterize the crane industry as demand-supply basis, like other capital intensive industries such as property, shipping, oil rigs, transportations etc...

Hence rental rate of cranes would be almost same across all cranes supplier. However being leading player like Tat Hong should have advantage of buying high volumes of cranes at discounted price as compare to other small players hence providing more rental margins to TH. Though I don't know how is other small players' margins are as compare to Tat Hong. Any one?

As per my observations, during 2001-2004 slugish period of economy, there was no much fresh supply addition of cranes in industry. And during 2005-2008 economy boom period, there was huge fresh supply of cranes. Since 2008, I believe that fresh supply addition was at much slower rate. Hence its likely that demand-supply equilibrium is due very soon or has already reached and then very likely the rental will rise.

However I don't like free cash flow and gearing ratio part of Tat Hong.

<vested>

[portuser]

Hiring of Tat Hong cranes may rise as disaster-stricken countries begin reconstructions after awards of tenders.

[Musicwhiz]

Hiring of Tat Hong cranes may rise as disaster-stricken countries begin reconstructions after awards of tenders.

I think the industry in general would benefit, and Tat Hong being one of the larger players would definitely see some spillover demand for their cranes. However, note that the crane industry is very fragmented - just look around any construction site and you can see a variety of cranes belonging to many different companies. Some are leased from companies like Tat Hong and Tiong Woon, while others are purchased and used by the construction contractors themselves. Therefore, it's hard to grab market share and switching costs for customers are low too.

That said, Tat Hong is in a cyclical industry and if you know how to time the cycle right then you can benefit from it. Nevertheless, the Company needs heavy and consistent capex and there is seldom FCF. I've learnt my lesson the hard way in expecting good dividends from them - the only time it was really good was during the "peak" of the cycle. Since then, dividends have languished plus they need to pay those RCPS holders.

[portuser]

Yes, the cyclical effect is less severe than real estate, say; because cranes can be moved to places where over-supply situations are less serious. Tat Hong has presence in many countries.
Tat Hong has bought more higher-capacity cranes. The reconstructions in Australia and Thailand should see demands for its cranes. It will benefit a great deal in Australia as it now has full ownership of Tutt Byran after buying out minority shareholders last year.

[portuser]

In a short space of three months, Tat Hong added 128 crawler cranes bringing its fleet to 755 as at 30 Jun 2012.
The addition did not lower utilisation rate during the period. It rose to 74% from 71%.
Rental in 1Q FY13 was $79.6m, significantly higher than $65.4m recorded in the preceding quarter.
Several yeas ago, Tat Hong beat others to own the largest number of crawler cranes in the world, with its sustained effort in building up the fleet.
Has it been over-aggressive in expansion this time round?
CEO has assured investors that all major regions where Tat Hong operates are experiencing strong demands for cranes, and many infrastructural projects are of long durations.

[propertyinvestor]

Tat Hong boss selling Tat Hong shares to buy Intraco lah. You all better go buy Intraco or Hanwell lah.

[portuser]

Tat Hong boss selling Tat Hong shares to buy Intraco lah. You all better go buy Intraco or Hanwell lah.

The has been no filing on disposal of Tat Hong shares. You may want to ask your contact to remind the boss to disclose promptly.

[potatolover]

How many of Tat Hong's total cranes are in China?

Its construction sector might see a hard landing....very hard one...


******

Staring down the bottomless pit We hope that the consensus is (finally) right and that we are wrong. We hope that we will not be repeating the joke that “the consensus is expecting a recovery in next quarter during every quarter”.

Unfortunately, we just don’t see that, and we doubt if the government has the willingness at this point to do much more, and we doubt whether the government really has the ability as the market thinks. We do not see convincing signs of recovery (except, perhaps, Wen Jiabao making waves every other week), and we even struggle to see signs of stabilisation.

If we see anything, we are seeing a bottomless pit.

http://www.alsosprachanalyst.com/economy...s-pit.html

[Musicwhiz]

This hasn't changed the thesis of why I chose to divest Tat Hong some time back (a glaring mistake of mine) - weak Balance Sheet (significant debt) and no FCF generation.

The Straits Times
www.straitstimes.com
Published on May 29, 2013
COMPANIES
Crane operator's Q4 earnings jump 66%

HIGHER crane rentals and sales in the Asia-Pacific region boosted fourth-quarter earnings at Tat Hong Holdings, it announced yesterday.

Net profit for the three months to March 31 jumped 66 per cent to $18.6 million, while revenue climbed 10 per cent to $199.6 million over the same period last year.

The crane operator also reported full-year earnings of $70.4 million and a record revenue of $836.9 million.

Increased turnover at its Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand business units, and excavator sales in Indonesia offset the lower sales of equipment in Australia and excavators in Vietnam.

Tat Hong's crane rental earnings improved due to contributions from its key markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Australia.

Its tower crane rental division recorded a 27 per cent growth in full-year revenue to $74.5 million from a year ago. This was largely thanks to its expanded fleet of cranes being more employed in infrastructure and commercial projects in China.

But revenue from the general equipment rental division dropped 4 per cent to $92.6 million on weaker demand from the mining sector in Queensland and reduced activity in New South Wales.

Chief executive Roland Ng said yesterday: "The demand for our crane rental business continues unabated, aided by the boom in the infrastructure and oil and gas sectors in the region."

Mr Ng added that Tat Hong will continue to get more projects in sectors that will help expand the crawler and mobile crane business.

Earnings per share for the fourth quarter were 3.07 cents, up from 1.96 cents, while net asset value per share as at March 31 was $1.08, up from 98 cents a year earlier.

Tat Hong has proposed a final dividend of 2.5 cents, bringing the payout for the year to 4 cents including the 1.5 cents paid on Nov 30 last year .

Tat Hong shares closed up three cents at $1.51 yesterday.

RACHEL SCULLY