Hotung Investment (和通）

[ksir]

the piece of junk is further plunging down to 1.25 today... any news or as usual someone has seen the yearly results before we poor fools and is running to sell ?

Just an interesting yet curious observation.
It seems to me that the quality of a company is perceived by its stock price. When it's up, it's called Gem. When it's down, it's Junk.
Whenever I heard the latter, it prompts my intension to buy.
But of course after much further drill in.

Just a curious case study, so it's all good now?

<still vested, not my core holding>

[desmondxyz]

the piece of junk is further plunging down to 1.25 today... any news or as usual someone has seen the yearly results before we poor fools and is running to sell ?

Just an interesting yet curious observation.
It seems to me that the quality of a company is perceived by its stock price. When it's up, it's called Gem. When it's down, it's Junk.
Whenever I heard the latter, it prompts my intension to buy.
But of course after much further drill in.

Just a curious case study, so it's all good now?

<still vested, not my core holding>

If hotung were a piece of junk, then it must be recyclable junk. I'm more than happy to become garang kuni...

<vested, 1/3 of portfolio>

[ksir]

I am waiting for someone to eventually call this a gem. It would likely prompt me to let go and allocate to others.

[BlueKelah]

the piece of junk is further plunging down to 1.25 today... any news or as usual someone has seen the yearly results before we poor fools and is running to sell ?

Just an interesting yet curious observation.
It seems to me that the quality of a company is perceived by its stock price. When it's up, it's called Gem. When it's down, it's Junk.
Whenever I heard the latter, it prompts my intension to buy.
But of course after much further drill in.

Just a curious case study, so it's all good now?

<still vested, not my core holding>

If hotung were a piece of junk, then it must be recyclable junk. I'm more than happy to become garang kuni...

<vested, 1/3 of portfolio>

wow pretty heavy portfolio allocation. good luck man, I'll be back in december to help with the buying pressure

[propertyinvestor]

Hotung has not disappoint so far 
Will continue to focus on such low P/B and high-cash stocks.

<Vested, Core Holding>

Have you taken a look at PEC?

[valuebuddies]

I reckon that Hotung has strong co-relation with the market sentiments, with the long anticipated crisis coming our way, I have not decided to add more to my portfolio.

small allocation vested

[Shrivathsa]

I reckon that Hotung has strong co-relation with the market sentiments, with the long anticipated crisis coming our way, I have not decided to add more to my portfolio.

small allocation vested

I have bought and sold Hotung in the past.
 
In my opinion, 
 
Hotung will serve as a position in the portfolio where you park your funds in something while waiting for a good opportunity to come, with a potential loss of anywhere between 10-15%, cushioned by a dividend yield of around 8%
 
Based on past trends, a good entry point for Hotung is at around 1.36 SGD (adjusted for the 10:1 consolidation), A good point to exit is around 1.5 SGD.
 
So, far, this has worked in the past 3 to 4 years.
 
Of course, this may not hold true in the future, but one does run that risk in almost every trade, for now, patiently waiting for a slight fall more to establish a position.

[ksir]

Hotung continues her buyback, with 338,500 shares purchased at avg price of S$1.43 (from 15-28 Nov 2016).
With that, the treasury shares now stand at 6,193,780, about 6% of outstanding shares of 98,466,882.

If my records serve me correctly, since 2008, the outstanding shares have been decreasing.
In 2008, total shares were about 122,400,000.
From 2008-2011, there were 21,000,000 shares bought back and (supposedly) cancelled.
I didn't dive deep into this, so CMIIW.

The total shares from 2012 onward are 104,200,000 shares.
From 2012 till now, 6,193,780 bought back and kept as treasury shares.
Outstanding shares now are 98,466,882.

To me, that is pretty impressive.
If you take into account the dividends paid since 2009, it is, I'd say hor hor tung (wait happily).

I suppose the business model is rather VC-like, hence with it the higher risk of "failed" investees.
However, the earnings since 2009 have been rather good and stable. 
Can't be sure if that's normal or just happened to be some good years.

My investment in this counters are mainly due to 2 factors:
1. The obvious low PB with significant portion of cash built in.
2. The Management
What they have done, dividends, buybacks (with price range of S$1.1 - S$1.5, not buying high to give shares to management).
Some success investees (MStar, Eslite, Nien Made etc) which they didn't brag too much about.
But of course, there are some bad eggs as well, as natural in VC business model.

<vested, near core>

[BlueKelah]

I would say Hotung is more like a listed investment company with exposure to china/taiwan markets. As we know anything China has been booming the past couple decades especially so with the rapid expansion of credit post GFC. It is also this exposure with could be detrimental to Hotung going forward should there be a hard landing in China. IMHO that is the main risk with this stock.

Otherwise Lady boss did do many share buy backs late last year @ 1.35 - 1.55 level(she is nowhere near delisting % yet though her share is creeping up slowly) and balance sheet remains strong with good MOS.

Earnings seem to be quite poor for 2016, from what seems a combi of dividend income collapsing from NT70k/quarter last year to less than NT40k/quarter this year and lack of revaluation gains as both stock markets in Taiwan and China which have been pretty flat since the big China stock crash last year.
q1    q2     q3
0.7+0.26+0.85 = NT$1.81 (~ SGD 8c)
given the weak global economy and slowdown in greater china, I don't see how they can get to even NT$2(SGD 9c) this year without another major divestment or run up in the stock markets.

Full Year 2015 EPS = NT$4.2 (~SGD 18c of which SGD 16.9c was paid out)

IMHO likely this year dividend will around SGD 8c only making a yield of 7%. It is also very possible the cash pile will be used for further SBB and further investments in assets/investments should markets make a significant dip.

[cyclone]

Financial results for the year ended 31 December 2016 : http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/2016%20f...eID=439650

Hotung declares cash dividend NT$3.1 per share for the financial year ended 31 December 2016.
Assume 1 NT = 0.046 SGD => NT$3.1 = S$0.1423.
Today's closing price is 1.6, so the current dividend yield is  8.9%.
NAV per share as at 31 December 2016 was  S$3.31

Yummy, yummy.