Hopefluent

[dreamybear]

Still trades below cash on its books & way below Book Value. China property sales for year FY20 have been up on yony basis. So expect revenues to be flat if not up with margins under pressure due to COVID and competition.

Notwithstanding the current property situation in China, the valuation seems incredible and it traded as low as 1.2 HKD. 

Is the mkt assigning a zero value to its receivables or assuming its cash is not there or undisclosed liabilities or ???? 

In any case, having been bitten once, I shall stay away.  

[Shiyi]

Still trades below cash on its books & way below Book Value. China property sales for year FY20 have been up on yony basis. So expect revenues to be flat if not up with margins under pressure due to COVID and competition.

Notwithstanding the current property situation in China, the valuation seems incredible and it traded as low as 1.2 HKD. 

Is the mkt assigning a zero value to its receivables or assuming its cash is not there or undisclosed liabilities or ???? 

In any case, having been bitten once, I shall stay away.  

The company has issued profit warning and estimated a loss of not less than HK$300 million due to impairment of receivables.

[karlmarx]

Despite the explosive share price performance in 2021, credit concerns from years back turned out to be valid after all. This is also probably the reason for the sale of a large block of shares at what seemed like a low price of $1.50 in 2020.

The 'autopsy report' from the proposed demerger between HF and Poly also showed (albeit superficially) that HF is a weak operator and Poly played an outsized role in contributing to a better consolidated result. HF may have yet more receivables to impair.

Property agency is good business, and PRC's market will continue to grow. But it does not look like HF is a good horse to bet in this industry for the next 10 years.

https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listco...600377.pdf

[specuvestor]

Good to hear from you again Karlmarx

Hopefluent like most movie / music companies agency type of business including propertyguru or APAC are in my bucket of too difficult / speculative that I will pass. Their payments or commissions to agents (or star performers) are hard to comprehend or manage

[karlmarx]

How nice to see you still active Specuvestor. Markets could get interesting soon and I'm starting to spend a little more time looking for ideas again.

I actually like APAC and Propnex a lot (not at current prices though) because they are a toll booth on SG real estate market and each of them own about a third of the market. It's crazy why they are allowed to get so big and if you are a developing a big project, you really don't have a lot of choices when it comes to choosing a marketing agent.

For Hopefluent, it is unfortunately one of many agents, and from the margins charged by them to developers, it is obvious that HF has no bargaining power. So much so that it has to be a 'lender' to the developers.