New Singapore activist hedge fund seeks to shake up companies

[weijian]

Same Winstedt Chong?

Links Island Holding Chairman Charged for Rigging Shares of Yongnam
http://bschool.nus.edu.sg/Portals/0/imag...202004.pdf
(Page 5)

NUS publication some more

If you finish reading the article, there is one paragraph below that most probably connect the 2 events together..

Thng said Chong’s role as an executive director of Dektos was approved by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, more than a decade after he was convicted and fined in a Singapore court for stock-price manipulation.

Kinda weird that they are heavily publicised on Bloomberg/The Edge. Are they looking out for more funds (suckers) to beef up their paltry 5mil fund?

[ksir]

Same Winstedt Chong?

Links Island Holding Chairman Charged for Rigging Shares of Yongnam
http://bschool.nus.edu.sg/Portals/0/imag...202004.pdf
(Page 5)

NUS publication some more

If you finish reading the article, there is one paragraph below that most probably connect the 2 events together..

Thng said Chong’s role as an executive director of Dektos was approved by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, more than a decade after he was convicted and fined in a Singapore court for stock-price manipulation.

Kinda weird that they are heavily publicised on Bloomberg/The Edge. Are they looking out for more funds (suckers) to beef up their paltry 5mil fund?

lolx from his track records which were mainly Currency Trading, it's not difficult to be very sceptical.
Not different from asking Trader to manage Value Investing fund?

[specuvestor]

The Investment Managers looks like macro traders... only Chong has actual company restructuring/ "stock rah-rah" experience... not difficult to figure out how this will work

[BlueKelah]

It is a good news to local market. It is beneficial to the activist fund, to OPMI, and as well as SGX, IMO...

New Singapore activist hedge fund seeks to shake up companies

SINGAPORE (Feb 4): Roland Thng is seeking to shake up Singapore’s staid corporate landscape, setting up a new hedge fund focused exclusively on influencing the way locally listed companies are run.

The 33-year-old has established EVA Capital SP with US$5 million, and initially plans to take stakes in small-and medium-sized construction and engineering companies in order to pressure them to improve performance.

“It’s a new approach and the market will need some time to get used to it,” Thng, who is chief executive officer of Singapore-based fund-management firm Dektos Investment Corp, which runs EVA Capital, said in an interview.

“Activist investing is a bit offensive in the Singapore and Asian context.”

Many Singapore companies have a controlling shareholder, which makes it easier to resist demands from activist investors, said Hugh Young, the Asia managing director at Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore.

“It also isn’t the cultural norm,” Young said. “It’s all more consensual in Asia, less confrontational. Things have been done a lot more quietly, behind closed doors.”
...
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/sg/article...-companies

wonder which stocks they are buying up? definitely would be worth it to load up on whatever they are buying, though 5 million may be only enough to take out micro-cap shares.

If you read further on the article, here is the answer May be time to revisit property stock, especially the small-caps...

"The fund has already bought a stake of about 2 percent in engineering firm Hock Lian Seng Holdings ( Financial Dashboard), he said. The company has a market capitalization of S$181 million, a dividend yield of 5.1 percent and trades at 9.6 times its earnings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."

No wonder price up recently. Was thinking it's some fund doing it. One of top share on radar but the mos from NAV was non existent


-- via Xperia Z1 with tapatalk

[weijian]

It is a good news to local market. It is beneficial to the activist fund, to OPMI, and as well as SGX, IMO...

New Singapore activist hedge fund seeks to shake up companies

SINGAPORE (Feb 4): Roland Thng is seeking to shake up Singapore’s staid corporate landscape, setting up a new hedge fund focused exclusively on influencing the way locally listed companies are run.

The 33-year-old has established EVA Capital SP with US$5 million, and initially plans to take stakes in small-and medium-sized construction and engineering companies in order to pressure them to improve performance.

“It’s a new approach and the market will need some time to get used to it,” Thng, who is chief executive officer of Singapore-based fund-management firm Dektos Investment Corp, which runs EVA Capital, said in an interview.

“Activist investing is a bit offensive in the Singapore and Asian context.”

Many Singapore companies have a controlling shareholder, which makes it easier to resist demands from activist investors, said Hugh Young, the Asia managing director at Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore.

“It also isn’t the cultural norm,” Young said. “It’s all more consensual in Asia, less confrontational. Things have been done a lot more quietly, behind closed doors.”
...
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/sg/article...-companies

wonder which stocks they are buying up? definitely would be worth it to load up on whatever they are buying, though 5 million may be only enough to take out micro-cap shares.

If you read further on the article, here is the answer May be time to revisit property stock, especially the small-caps...

"The fund has already bought a stake of about 2 percent in engineering firm Hock Lian Seng Holdings ( Financial Dashboard), he said. The company has a market capitalization of S$181 million, a dividend yield of 5.1 percent and trades at 9.6 times its earnings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."

No wonder price up recently. Was thinking it's some fund doing it. One of top share on radar but the mos from NAV was non existent


-- via Xperia Z1 with tapatalk

Well, if one could see MOS from NAV, then private investors would not be willing to pay 2% fees to hedge fund geniuses to sift out potential value/deep value plays anymore..

Maybe it is the sceptical part of me, but something 'feels' funny...My number one rule is 'If i read it in the news, i am probably too late'...Are these people actually creating publicity for themselves and positioning the future baits for retail meat to come in and allow them to exit their positions?

I find it hard to imagine a 5mil fund (and it cannot leverage too much up without those exotic options) can showhand those small cap manager+majority owners who should most probably be some sort of towkays in their own right.

[opmi]

^^ $5m not a lot. But it does served as a rally point for other OPMI shareholders to work together.
As I said before, there are too many minority shareholders who WHOLE DAY want to DO NOTHING except to FREE RIDE.

When someone rise up to KPKB, OPMI should response and support.

[BlueKelah]

2% of a company is probably not enough, even a small company with market cap 50 million, buying 10% with 5 million won't have majority vote, how to put any pressure.

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[GFG]

2% of a company is probably not enough, even a small company with market cap 50 million, buying 10% with 5 million won't have majority vote, how to put any pressure.

-- via Xperia Z1 with tapatalk

I agree with the earlier posts that they are probably just trying to get cash rich companies to return more $$$. Not improving any operations or increasing revenue streams for the company.

2% of hock lian seng, based on a very conservative purchase price of around $0.32, is already around 4mil of his 5mil fund.
FY14 results coming out soon, div yield is very respectable for HLS. He's probably trying to go in and catch the div.
Of course it's definitely a positive for existing minority SHs, but I am not expecting much activism from them, despite their claims to be so. With only 5 mil what can you possibly do

[natnavi]

This article is clearly written to boost the company's publicity. In boosting their publicity, they hope to pool in more investors.
They are also leveraging on NUS' reputation to sell their services.

IMHO, I will not put in a dime of my own money into this fund unless they are able to clearly state how they are able to improve the 'performance' of companies with $10M, assuming their fund doubles within the next year after much publicity. In addition, they will need to state what sort of performance are they talking about.

[opmi]

I don't know if they can get money with the Chairman history.
I wonder if they already got fund mgt license to manage outside money.