Metro Holdings

[camelking]

sold all my holding in metro after 1 plus years.

i think the price has peaked with the 6 cents dividend and 100m net profit.
I do not think, going forward, the company can achieve the same or higher level of profitability again.
A closer look reveal half of the profit for FY 14 came from one-off gain such as negative goodwill, revaluation and gain on disposal of 100H pansir panjang.
As mentioned before, i am worried about the sale for the development at prince charles crescent.

Well,i could be wrong..Let's see.

[greengiraffe]

The quality of gains at Metro over the years have not be fantastic. Without one-offs, core earnings has been very low.

GG

sold all my holding in metro after 1 plus years.

i think the price has peaked with the 6 cents dividend and 100m net profit.
I do not think, going forward, the company can achieve the same or higher level of profitability again.
A closer look reveal half of the profit for FY 14 came from one-off gain such as negative goodwill, revaluation and gain on disposal of 100H pansir panjang.
As mentioned before, i am worried about the sale for the development at prince charles crescent.

Well,i could be wrong..Let's see.

[GFG]

The quality of gains at Metro over the years have not be fantastic. Without one-offs, core earnings has been very low.

GG

sold all my holding in metro after 1 plus years.

i think the price has peaked with the 6 cents dividend and 100m net profit.
I do not think, going forward, the company can achieve the same or higher level of profitability again.
A closer look reveal half of the profit for FY 14 came from one-off gain such as negative goodwill, revaluation and gain on disposal of 100H pansir panjang.
As mentioned before, i am worried about the sale for the development at prince charles crescent.

Well,i could be wrong..Let's see.

Hi... just to share my views to the above.
I currently have 276 lots in metro at an ave price of $0.7 and am holding or adding at the right price.

It seems that many people are understandably worried about the one-off gains. Without the "Extraordinary" one off gains, the core earnings are always very low. But these "one off" gains are anything but that. Over the course of the past 5 years, there have been several such one off gains. The nature of Metro property business is such that mature assets that have appreciated sufficiently, or if going forward the yield on such properties do not justify holding on, will be divested. Naturally the profits will be bulked up by such one off instances as it depends on the market conditions. As minority SHs then, we are basically trusting that management has the integrity, and the ability, to find such opportunities, nurture (in the form of asset enhancement) and ultimately hold on or divest at an opportune time. How do we decide whether we can trust the management to do so?
The simple answer is track record.
Just to add, since this is a value investing forum, in Ben Graham's security analysis, he did advocate including one off gains in a MULTI YEAR analysis, and to exclude them in a single year analysis.

Also, i noted there are concerns about entering the chinese market.
The news out there is always about how badly the chinese property market is now, how badly it is going forward, and how likely will there be a crash. But the chinese market is way too broad and diversified to be summarily discussed like this.
There are pockets of the market that will do incredibly well.
So a macro analysis of the chinese market does not apply accurately to metro. Again, it makes more sense to look at the detail of what metro is doing. For eg. the Nanchang fashion mark project already has 2 phases sold out. This doesnt look like a crashing market. IMO, i would get worried if metro starts going big into the chinese residential markets in the tier 1 cities.

Lastly, and there may be some bias here, but Ngee Ann Developments have steadily added to their stake in metro. They now own just over 10% of Metro. I am acutely aware of this as I do personally know some of the management of Ngee Ann. They recently added a little to their stake at $0.92, but prior to this, the last time they added substantially was a couple of years ago at $0.6 - $0.65
Even without including dividends, the return over the past 2 yrs is already easily 50%. If you include the dividends of 10 cents over the past 2 years, it's a lot higher.
Will be happy to hear any other arguments or opinions that differ from mine.

[GFG]

The quality of gains at Metro over the years have not be fantastic. Without one-offs, core earnings has been very low.

GG

sold all my holding in metro after 1 plus years.

i think the price has peaked with the 6 cents dividend and 100m net profit.
I do not think, going forward, the company can achieve the same or higher level of profitability again.
A closer look reveal half of the profit for FY 14 came from one-off gain such as negative goodwill, revaluation and gain on disposal of 100H pansir panjang.
As mentioned before, i am worried about the sale for the development at prince charles crescent.

Well,i could be wrong..Let's see.

Hi... just to share my views to the above.
I currently have 276 lots in metro at an ave price of $0.7 and am holding or adding at the right price.

It seems that many people are understandably worried about the one-off gains. Without the "Extraordinary" one off gains, the core earnings are always very low. But these "one off" gains are anything but that. Over the course of the past 5 years, there have been several such one off gains. The nature of Metro property business is such that mature assets that have appreciated sufficiently, or if going forward the yield on such properties do not justify holding on, will be divested. Naturally the profits will be bulked up by such one off instances as it depends on the market conditions. As minority SHs then, we are basically trusting that management has the integrity, and the ability, to find such opportunities, nurture (in the form of asset enhancement) and ultimately hold on or divest at an opportune time. How do we decide whether we can trust the management to do so?
The simple answer is track record.
Just to add, since this is a value investing forum, in Ben Graham's security analysis, he did advocate including one off gains in a MULTI YEAR analysis, and to exclude them in a single year analysis.

Also, i noted there are concerns about entering the chinese market.
The news out there is always about how badly the chinese property market is now, how badly it is going forward, and how likely will there be a crash. But the chinese market is way too broad and diversified to be summarily discussed like this.
There are pockets of the market that will do incredibly well.
So a macro analysis of the chinese market does not apply accurately to metro. Again, it makes more sense to look at the detail of what metro is doing. For eg. the Nanchang fashion mark project already has 2 phases sold out. This doesnt look like a crashing market. IMO, i would get worried if metro starts going big into the chinese residential markets in the tier 1 cities.

Lastly, and there may be some bias here, but Ngee Ann Developments have steadily added to their stake in metro. They now own just over 10% of Metro. I am acutely aware of this as I do personally know some of the management of Ngee Ann. They recently added a little to their stake at $0.92, but prior to this, the last time they added substantially was a couple of years ago at $0.6 - $0.65
Even without including dividends, the return over the past 2 yrs is already easily 50%. If you include the dividends of 10 cents over the past 2 years, it's a lot higher.
Will be happy to hear any other arguments or opinions that differ from mine.

Oh just to add about the property development in singapore - The Crest
I do agree this is one of the risks for metro though.
Not expecting it to do well in the current market, and there will be new developments coming up in that area so there is stiff competition out there.
I also noted that the launch has actually been delayed for a few months.

[opmi]

Qn: does Jopie still has the profit sharing on the profit including revaluation gains? Thanks in advance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kayhian]

I am still happily vested

[GFG]

Qn: does Jopie still has the profit sharing on the profit including revaluation gains? Thanks in advance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I dont think anyone knows.
His remuneration is tagged to how well the company does generally.
If there are divestments with profit recognised, he generally gets a bumper pay for that year. So I am expecting that he'll be remunerated handsomely this time too.

As for the specific details like how closely is it tagged and how his remuneration is calculated, I dont think this is public information.

[zerobeta]

The quality of gains at Metro over the years have not be fantastic. Without one-offs, core earnings has been very low.

GG

sold all my holding in metro after 1 plus years.

i think the price has peaked with the 6 cents dividend and 100m net profit.
I do not think, going forward, the company can achieve the same or higher level of profitability again.
A closer look reveal half of the profit for FY 14 came from one-off gain such as negative goodwill, revaluation and gain on disposal of 100H pansir panjang.
As mentioned before, i am worried about the sale for the development at prince charles crescent.

Well,i could be wrong..Let's see.

Hi... just to share my views to the above.
I currently have 276 lots in metro at an ave price of $0.7 and am holding or adding at the right price.

It seems that many people are understandably worried about the one-off gains. Without the "Extraordinary" one off gains, the core earnings are always very low. But these "one off" gains are anything but that. Over the course of the past 5 years, there have been several such one off gains. The nature of Metro property business is such that mature assets that have appreciated sufficiently, or if going forward the yield on such properties do not justify holding on, will be divested. Naturally the profits will be bulked up by such one off instances as it depends on the market conditions. As minority SHs then, we are basically trusting that management has the integrity, and the ability, to find such opportunities, nurture (in the form of asset enhancement) and ultimately hold on or divest at an opportune time. How do we decide whether we can trust the management to do so?
The simple answer is track record.
Just to add, since this is a value investing forum, in Ben Graham's security analysis, he did advocate including one off gains in a MULTI YEAR analysis, and to exclude them in a single year analysis.

Also, i noted there are concerns about entering the chinese market.
The news out there is always about how badly the chinese property market is now, how badly it is going forward, and how likely will there be a crash. But the chinese market is way too broad and diversified to be summarily discussed like this.
There are pockets of the market that will do incredibly well.
So a macro analysis of the chinese market does not apply accurately to metro. Again, it makes more sense to look at the detail of what metro is doing. For eg. the Nanchang fashion mark project already has 2 phases sold out. This doesnt look like a crashing market. IMO, i would get worried if metro starts going big into the chinese residential markets in the tier 1 cities.

Lastly, and there may be some bias here, but Ngee Ann Developments have steadily added to their stake in metro. They now own just over 10% of Metro. I am acutely aware of this as I do personally know some of the management of Ngee Ann. They recently added a little to their stake at $0.92, but prior to this, the last time they added substantially was a couple of years ago at $0.6 - $0.65
Even without including dividends, the return over the past 2 yrs is already easily 50%. If you include the dividends of 10 cents over the past 2 years, it's a lot higher.
Will be happy to hear any other arguments or opinions that differ from mine.

agree that one off gains can be value-enhancing if management has good track record in it.

but what are the catalysts on the stock? don't think they are going to divest any of their properties soon? The property development segment seems to be risky and Metro department store is a low margin business, prospect is not exciting with many competitions, and contribution is still small anyway.

they are trading at P/B of 0.7x, which is 1SD above long term historical mean. Not to mention that book value could actually be inflated because of strong property prices in China. If you put a 10-30% discount, or if property prices do correct, the company will look even more expensive. What's your target price anyway?

[GFG]

My target price is $1.25
I have 276 lots at an ave price of $0.74
Excluding dividends of 15 cents collected since 2011, and another 6 cents in 2 mths

There are strong catalysts, but maybe we will leave that discussion to a later date as I may add more at the right price
IMO, the catalysts will show up in the form of very stellar results in FY15 Q3, Q4

[greengiraffe]

http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/Announce...eID=303913

Can Metro pull it off in UK after asset bubbles being well documented in London?