8I Holdings Limited (ASX:8IH)

[money]

8i operation explained that
 The real danger for course students is not losing a 1 time couple of thousands on instructors.

But the later move where the student place their faith and life long saving money into an instructor is always ready to pump up their garbage and dump it to their hidden champion fund.

And the student pick up the garbage like a gem.

So goes the share from $1 to $0.06.
95% wipe out for student who practice value investing.

i think many people want to make their money work harder for them, there is nothing wrong with that, personally i try to improve my financial knowledge so that i can compound my funds at a higher rate (hopefully).

However, some people are less fortunate, they stumble upon value investing from the wrong group of people. These instructors are usually very charismatic, very good salesman, once the students are sold, they will buy pick up the garbage, software, etc that are actively promoted. It is very sad, i am certain that these salesman can easily excel in other jobs, i just dont get why have to engage in such unethical activity

[specuvestor]

There are a number of people trying to monetise their investment knowledge/ability. Those with enough money, and confidence of their investment abilities, will try to get licensed to manage monies legitimately. Those without sufficient money or confidence of their ability may go into areas that does not require licensing, such as 'education.'

I have been critical of purveyors of 'investment education' for many reasons. But mainly it is simply a case of a product/service that is sold at an overvalued price. Or in other words, having to pay much more than what one could possibly receive.

But I have also realised that there will always be a market for 'investment education.' Mainly because there will always be people who are willing to pay for what some of them may believe to be hot tips. Yes, most of such attendees are not looking to be actually educated, than to be told what to buy and not to buy. No, these attendees are not of the uneducated sort. They knew there is a possibility their money will not be well-spent. They just choose to believe that their 'trainers' are people who are going to help them identify the next multi-bagger. There is little sense in trying to do 'public service,' to warn people of such potential pitfalls, so to speak.

The beauty of some of these 'investment education' companies is that they not only 'teach' you, but also sell you investment products. I have to say, they are truly entrepreneurial; a cut far above their 'investment education' competitors. If the investments they sold to their students have continued to perform well, they could eventually have gain a license to sell their fund to not only AI, but retailers. That could have been a game-changer for them.

It is highly unlikely that the 'investment education' industry will come under regulation. It is, after all, a case of willing-buyer meets willing-seller, and no guarantees of outcome, whatever it may be.

Instead, perhaps MAS should relax the rules regulating fund management. Perhaps allowing non-AI investors to put their money in the smaller hedge funds, who are now not allowed to sell to non-AI investors. And perhaps lowering the requirements for an aspiring fund manager. After all, if you're as good as you claim to be -- at least good enough to be teaching other how to do it -- should you not also be good enough to be doing it professionally, and hence be judged by professional standards?

Actually the idea of AI is exactly to provide higher risk non recourse investments to these group of sophisticated investors that cant say they don’t know

In a sense these AI group will be the ones that are supposed to fund and filter out the hedge fund start ups so that the good ones will remain, similar to Private Equity. But as usual people only see the successful cases.

On a similar note 8I / Hidden Champion is a registered FMC that can only serve AI. I’m wondering how many of their students that invest on their recommendation are AI

[karlmarx]

The current market for investments for the 'emerging affluent' -- those who do not belong to AI category, but has large investable assets, say $500k -- is roughly as such:

1. Fixed / Structured Deposits

2. Exchange Traded Funds based on a particular (equity/bond market) Index
3. Unit Trust (active/passive managed, equity/bond portfolio)
4. Insurance with Participating Fund (whole life/endowment)
5. Robo / AI-managed portfolio of equity/bond ETFs

6. Exchange Traded Stocks

I have left out property due to the restrictive regulations on ownership of an investment property.

===

An investor who wishes to get higher returns than 1-2% p.a., but who does not wish to enter the stock/property market, will be largely restricted to options 2-5. 

While these options may look like different choices to investors, they are largely quite similar in character and returns. The index-hugging behaviour of so-called actively-managed Unit Trusts make them no different from ETF, except with higher fees for the active management. For Par Fund Insurance, their underlying is either their in-house Unit Trust or ETFs. They generate slightly lower returns than UTs/ETFs because of the added cost of agent sales commission and insurance. As for Robo, the underlying are ETFs, except that there is some supposedly superior algorithm actively managing your portfolio. 

Hence, choosing anything from option 2-5 will at best only yield market-average (i.e. index) returns, with lower returns for those with added services such as agent servicing, insurance, and active management. While investing in any of these products may yield very good returns (say, more than 20% p.a.) on particular years -- such as equities between 2005-2007 -- they are the exception rather than the norm. The norm -- the longer-term average -- is something like 3-5% p.a.. Even then, most may not even get such returns due to the investor's inability to stomach volatility, or just wait patiently.

So how? Fixed deposits too low, structured deposits too long, property too restrictive, and ETF/UT/Insurance/Robo does not deliver stable/predictable/good returns. I want to make a killing. But the equity markets looks even more risky, and I know next to nothing. So how?

In the past, return-hungry investors had the choice of land banking, oil pods, time-share, gold buy-backs, and so on.

But the public has since become (slightly) smarter. They are now less likely to fall for your 'high-return investments,' perhaps at least for the time being.

So how does the market satisfy these return-hungry, non-AI-but-quite-rich, and more savvy, investors?

===

I agree that the purpose of only allowing AI to subscribe to boutique funds are meant to protect the non-AI. But by 'protecting' the non-AI, they are made vulnerable to 'investment education' salesmen. Besides, the volatility of most long-only boutique funds does not differ too much from their benchmark indices. 

So I think MAS should move towards allows for the non-AI-but-quite-rich segment to be more adequately served, preferably with more access to those services available to AI. Perhaps MAS' rationale is that these group of people are already adequately served by the wealth management units of big banks. Perhaps to protect the non-AI-but-quite-rich market of these big banks. 

My opinion is that the market for investment needs to be freer to reduce 'waste' and enhance competitiveness.

[specuvestor]

If you can solve the riddle of how not to socilaise the cost while personalising the gains then I think it will be something palatable

It's a psychological trait that people overestimate themselves, thinking they can do better than the professional, chef, barber etc. Emerging affluent will not get the same service or support from the Private Banks, and not even from brokers as comm goes single digit % (the unintended consequence of "free service"). How much time do they actually put into their savvy investments? Within VB there's already different layers of expertise, not to mention the bottomless chasm from other investment platforms.

People complain about CPF money being locked up yet forget the Batam debacle, just as new batch of investors forgot about derivatives as WMD, AAA CDO and Minibonds. In my humble opinion, I think we will see Private Equity bust in the next 24 months or so... but ironically longer if Fed cut rates back to zero

Volatility is market risk. Usually it's the counterparty risk that kills. US has quite a bit of these blow up examples.

[opmi]

OT a bit

Personally, I prefer not to deal with any clients if I am investing professionally.
My opinion - Once you take money from others, you are their b**ch. haha

If really want to take Other People Money (OPM), I feel that most investors are unappreciative, forgetful kan-cheong spiders.
So better take the smaller number with money (AI), rather than big numbers with not a lot of money (no-AI). Dealing with
clients/LPs is quite distracting.

[karlmarx]

With regards to the issues mentioned here, such as kan cheong investors who cause disruption such as redemptions, bugging you about things like what they think you should buy/sell, and the problem of asking for a government bailout when things fail, I think that it is perhaps a matter of being transparent and establishing clear expectations for the investors.

After all, if some of these retail investors can be convinced of paying exorbitant membership fees, and placing their money into illiquid pre-ipo companies, I don't see why they cannot be educated like AI on budgeting for emergency funds, the (market/counterparty/etc) risks exposed to such an investment, the benefits of long-term investing, and so on, when the fund manager is doing his road show. 

Yes, ideally, an FMC would want a few big clients with aligned investment philosophy. But this also creates a market for the demograph which I have mentioned. 

I guess for now, they shall have to 自生自灭. 

[jaco]

For students who are directly invested into 8i, I guess they can clarify their issues with mgmt during the AGM. I wld think being educated in value investing, the students shd be able to ask sensible & relevant questions.

Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of shareholders for 8I Holdings Limited will be held on:
Date: 15 August 2019 (Thursday)
Time: 11am (SST)
Venue: Goldbell Towers, 47 Scotts Road, #03-03/04, Singapore 228233

To register your interest in attending the meeting, please register through this link: http://8ly.cc/8iagm2019
Please note that proof of identity and shareholding credentials will be required for entry.

[jaco]

8I Holdings released their HY2021 report: https://www.8iholdings.com/news-and-resources

It covers the 1 apr - 30 sep period, which was of course defined by the lockdowns at various degrees and in various countries. 8I performed extremely well in this period. Their Hidden Champions fund recovered better than the market indexes. The revenues from their financial education programs more than doubled. More specifically, revenues tripled in Malaysia. They earn more in Malaysia than in Singapore now.

As I was a bit surprised and trying to wrap my head around this, I recalled that right after the lockdowns started there was a world-wide opening of new broker accounts by first-time investors. 8I/VI College is now able to give their trainings online and their online advertisement campaigns have been ruthless. It may be that many of these new investors decided to also invest in their financial education, which in itself is a good thing.

[jaco]

8I Holdings published its preliminary FY2023 report: https://www.8iholdings.com/investors#announcements

Revenue dropped to 16,299,675 with a total comprehensive loss for the year of (16,546,903). In cashflow terms the numbers were less disastrous.

A significant number of our products are closely tied to investment courses, and the challenging market conditions led to a decline in demand for our offerings.

It looks like 8I is -once again- restructuring its businesses. 8I will close down its Fund Management business due to lack of performance and lack of interest for the funds.

[dreamybear]

8I Holdings published its preliminary FY2023 report: https://www.8iholdings.com/investors#announcements

Revenue dropped to 16,299,675 with a total comprehensive loss for the year of (16,546,903). In cashflow terms the numbers were less disastrous.

A significant number of our products are closely tied to investment courses, and the challenging market conditions led to a decline in demand for our offerings.

It looks like 8I is -once again- restructuring its businesses. 8I will close down its Fund Management business due to lack of performance and lack of interest for the funds.

The restructuring is also mentioned in AR2024, it seems to be focusing on investment management. I thought educational services businesses provide good cashflow but guess it doesn't fit into the strategy moving fwd.

I Quit My $100,000 Finance Job In 2024 After Learning 3 Things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpJzG5euvrg

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https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman...9ad5cb14c3
"In response to this uncertain global investment climate, 8IH undertook a comprehensive and strategic restructuring. This transformative process involved the divestment of all its operational businesses, including VI College and Goodwhale, its FinEduTech arm. This decision marked a significant shift in the Group's strategic direction, as it moved away from managing educational services to focusing exclusively on investment activities. The divestment allowed 8IH to streamline its operations and concentrate its resources on its core competency of investment management. "