It'll be funny if a bidder waits for 6 months and then comes in and offer say 20% higher than the average market price over the past 12 months near 70 sen. Then, those speculators who jumped in on privatization news might have to dispose at a loss, causing Astro to fall back to 60 sen again.

At 69.5 sen, Astro is valued at RM3.6 billion. Pay TV contributes 90% of its total revenues. It supplies 5.7 million homes. So, each home has to roughly generate RM3.6 billion / 5.7 million homes = RM631 net profit over say next 10-20 years.

I suppose if there is a private investor who believe they can double that, then, they might offer something a little bit higher than 70 sen, but they won't offer RM1.40 because they have to do a whole lot of work and they need to be rewarded.

I think the market price of 70 sen is about right, but the "hope" is if/when a bidder comes in, then, for a short while, price might get frenzied and ridiculous and it's then time to dispose.

Privatisation is fake news. Why would anyone buy a sunset business at even 80 sen, when Net Assets is only 20 sen? Astro has huge debts, why would any private person buy that massive debt? What special thing can any private investor do to Astro that it couldn't do when it is public? Astro stops dividend payments because it has to conserve cash to simply survive. Privatisation here simply does not make any commercial sense at all! I wish Astro can rise to 80 sen but right now, it's hope at best. Anyway, here's "hoping" for privatisation, but seriously, why would anyone privatise this sunset business?

Astro's last quarterly earnings is so sad at 0.1 sen. Even if it earns 1 sen next year, the P/E at 50 sen is like 50 times. Due to high borrowing costs, and mistakes in hedging, 50 sen is too high a price to pay if you are a long term investor who plans to hold the stocks for several years as price can expect to keep going down long term, even with short term spikes up.

Astro can try to beautify its books for a while. Make it look like it gets its books in order for 1, 2 or even 3 quarters. But without genuine business improvement, that price spike is just going to get sold down again to make new lows.

If you keep selling at price spikes, you have an easy win with Astro.

So, all those brokers a few months back that says "Astro business model remains intact long term" failed to note the huge borrowings and the huge permanent negative impact on earnings arising from interest costs. Interest costs is real. It's a real drag and can bring business down to become insolvent if cannot pay. Banks wants their loans back regardless, even if it means dragging Astro to bankruptcy court in next few years if Astro cannot pay.

Astro revenue is like 4 billion a year. Losing 2% revenue each year is peanuts, when that's only 80 million and when profit margin is like 10%, that's only 8 million earnings loss a year.

That Finance cost in 1 quarter spiked up 100+ million.

Basically, Astro gambled in huge borrowings. Now, it's stuck and has to pay the price.

Funny thing is same time last year, dividend yield was also very high. 31/1/22 full 12m dividend is 6.75 sen. Now, 31/1/23 12m dividend is looking more like 3.75 sen. So, back then, dividend yield is high, but problem is price halved, so, when dividend halved, dividend yield still high but already lost 50% in capital loss.

Buying when dividend yield is high must be careful. The only way to protect oneself is don't buy too much and stop buying when wrong. Until you can see a positive catalyst in advance of the market. Not dreams or hope, but one that will bring in higher earnings. Very hard to do.

HLIB projected dividend yield of 10% is dreaming. There's no way 2023 or 2024 dividends is going to be 6 sen. Already YTD from last 3 quarters is only 3 sen and declining. It will be lucky if next quarter declares 0.75 sen. With downside price bias as it keeps reporting higher borrowing costs. Analysts are usually slow to adjust for stocks like this. 50 sen is very possible price target.

A year ago, broker house price targets were around RM1.50 or so. Today, the same broker house price targets are like 80 sen or halved. Moral of the story - broker houses cannot tell the future better than you or me. Most people saw the long term decline

ASTRO stock price crashed after 15 Dec after Quarterly announcement. It reflects the huge Finance cost arising from the permanent long term borrowing - USD loans increased by USD1 billion, attracting perennial high interest costs. Quarterly earnings fell from 106 sen last year in Qtr ending 10/21 down to 6 sen in Qtr ending 10/22. Future earnings could end up at single digit. No surprise because same time last year, Finance cost was only 27million, a year later 142 million per quarter. ASTRO is basically now bleeding in Finance cost every quarter by over 100 million, or nearly 500 million per year. Without earnings, without revenue growth, expect dividends to be cut. The Dividend yield will no longer be 10% for next 10 years. More like dividend trap.

Extreme state's decisions like this is what's spooking overseas investors. Outcome is eventual total Bursa under-valuation, not just limited to legal gambling stocks. Why invest in extremist states?

https://www.thestar.com.my/starpicks/2023/01/14/what-happens-when-you-buy-illegal-4d-in-malaysia - examples of issues from illegal gambling. Not only is it bigger than legal gambling, there's also the loss of tax revenues too. Making something illegal, other things equal, is more likely to attract associated illegal activities. The average person who earn RM5,000 a month and bet RM10 in Sport Toto isn't going to then steal things because that is just entertainment, probably no different than spending on a packet of cigarettes. Or are we banning this too?

""With this addiction, there is often involvement in criminal activities such as theft and robbery, which can lead to further mental health problems.""
Wow - is there even any scientific, statistical or even any academic research evidence that shows that Sports Toto players are involved in theft, robbery which then led to mental health problems? Or is this done to encourage more illegal, underground gambling?

"The market is obviously mispricing Genting Bhd with an unjustifiable discount." -- No. Market never mispriced. The discount is justifiable as it cannot return cash to shareholders given in a few years times, PAS takes over Malaysia and Genting business suffers again. Over the past decades, the Islamic trend in Malaysia is unmistakeable, and this trend will only get worse for Genting in the coming decades. Noone can stop this trend in Malaysia.

Genting is a perpetual laggard when it comes to global gaming stocks, so, no point comparing against non Malaysia gaming stocks. So, now Anwar wins but who knows when before PAS takes over - global long term investors simply don't want to have that Malaysia uncertainty when there's so many other great choices globally.

Sure it's hugely undervalued on that metric, but until Genting disposes its Singapore holdings, it can never unlock that value and market doesn't believe Genting will ever dispose its Singapore holdings, so, what good is it to Genting investors if it never disposes completely - it assume such disposal fetches current market price, which is also a question mark too.

Hence, Genting will forever trades at a huge discount. It's just the way it's located (in Malaysia) and structured permanently like that.

Looks like fund managers are now picking up value stocks as their outlook for new Malaysia government is net positive. ASTRO is beaten down too much. If the new government doesn't screw up, we will have seen the bottom for ASTRO.

Market now realizes that LCTITAN NTA is 5.6x. When it was trading at 1.2x, market forgot that its cash holdings were greater than that. In other words, Market was so pessimistic that LCTITAN won't reward its shareholders, that it only saw the 2 quarterly losses and forgot that there's so much cash in the coffers. And LCTITAN could pay out its cash more than RM1.2x if it wanted to. And now, with just 13.98 sen dividend, market changes its mind that LCTITAN could pay shareholder more than RM1.2x and still not need to take up debts immediately (but eventually will have to to fund for Indonesia capex expansion) but even then, its NTA of 5.6x speaks of a lot of buffer there, where Debt / Equity, even if add another RM1 is still healthy. This stock got beaten so badly, when foreigners come back to Malaysia, they will look at this stock and realize how cheap it was trading just a month ago ...

Nice Special Dividends, nearly 13.98 sen, roughly 50% of PATAMI. Good that this stock takes care of its shareholders with its dividend policy. Otherwise, its expansion that consumes cash with no payouts to shareholder looks wrong. This will be my biggest dividend to be collected. I'm glad I averaged down again at 1.31, but average cost is still 1.62xx.

MAXIS flies! 4.11 high at the time of writing. Took 20% partial profits as I averaged down to lower my average cost down to 3.88. Hope the last 2 digit will bring more good luck to come!

Sorry, the RM12-14 price target is maybe in 2-4 years time rather than next 12 months. 12 months is possible but may not be likely unless sentiment really changes in the market. The reliable and high dividend yield though is very nice at this juncture especially after we’ve seen bottom.

Perhaps we’ve seen the bottom for BAT already after Khairy lost. GeG was always too ambitious and Khairy seen as the face of it. Market should be pricing in for at least 4-5 year delay which should translate another RM2-4 rise over next year once government is stable and GeG is indefinitely deferred;) I am glad I averaged down at RM 10, lowering my average cost at 10.4, now one of my biggest holdings. My actual cost lower from past dividends collected.

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/astro-invest-more-local-content-streaming-services-%E2%80%94-group-coo.

1.5 months ago, Euan keeps trying to change market perception of ASTRO, talking about "transformation plans", "further invests in global streaming services", "reimagine business model", "making ASTRO an incredible effective machine", "partnering with global OTT players like Netflix, Disney+, ...", "aggregate streaming services", etc. ... - but ...

1. Obviously, market doesn't believe him, as price drops hugely after that.
2. Does ASTRO management really know what to do to arrest that subscriber decline, or are they just grasping at straws with beautiful conceptual market words, where 3 months later, subscriber revenue keep falling i.e. Marketing BS with no real positive impact result?
3. Would be good to see a real analyst who projects declining revenue, declining profits and then put a number to the price, even if lower than current price. That may then set the floor to the price.
4. ASTRO management needs to plan for declining revenue, cut costs, keep a lean team and prepare for a sunset company. Otherwise, keeping costs high when revenue declines will drive this company to zero eventually. No point throwing more $$$ into a sunset industry. They now have a tough choice - spend and revenue keep declining, or reduce spending substantially and revenues decline faster but may give higher profits. When ASTRO first started, nobody saw how fast Netflix, Disney+ etc. will grow nor how fast illegal TV boxes will grow, but we are here now, the new reality is here now, and the question is will ASTRO do the right thing to shareholders i.e. recognize this is a sunset industry, keep costs down to only necessary activities, look to sell itself to newer growing players i.e. do the right thing for its shareholders.

cheeseburger, if you haven't got any exposure in ASTRO yet, then, I agree there's no rush to enter into ASTRO as the long term decline in subscriber revenue is a real one and that decline is still the case even for its most quarter reports.

And yes, there is no catalysts for growth in sight yet to arrest this decline. ASTRO relies so much on subscriber growth to generate its earnings, any new investor into ASTRO should wait to see a real catalyst, a real "inflexion point" to positively turn around ASTRO's business model.

For this kind of business, ASTRO making all time price low, etc. is not a real reason to enter for long term investment, because many times in the past, when it first made new lows, wait and price keeps making new lows. And investing for high current dividend yield also doesn't make sense when it keeps cutting its dividends, meaning what looks like high dividends can become smaller and smaller dividends in the future. The combined effects of long term declining price and long term reduction in future dividends doesn't justify entry.

As for me, I'm stuck with my small % holding. I am now at a stage where I am praying for short term price volatility to reduce my position at a smaller % loss. I am hoping for price volatility in the next 6 months to retest 80-82 sen and there I plan to reduce my position. There is no guarantee price will get there. In any case, I'm not in a rush but every lousy quarterly report earnings that keeps showing declining revenue growth will probably press the price down even further and further. As they said, support once broken becomes resistance, so, I'm going to join these sellers to sell at each resistance and try to reduce my losses, as it is really very hard for ASTRO to positively turn around its business model. All the BUY call analysts are hoping too much, when the positive catalyst - the real change - and the real result - is still not there yet.

Hmmm ... if anyone had followed both "trading" calls on LCTITAN and NCT, that would be 2 out of 2 losses. I suppose the next trade might win or lose.

If technical trading profits is only a coin toss (50/50), isn't this a losing game after commissions? All that "technical analysis", time spent - isn't that just a waste of time?

Where's the LONG TERM proof that these "technical analysis" really makes monies, really grow your account after 5, 10 years?

H1/2022 revenue is only RM90 million, so, they won't make that big jump in revenue to catch market attention. So, maybe 2023 might be their luckier year ... investors must be super patient with this stock. If not patient, then sell so that price finds bottom faster :-)

And sadly, the revenue picture is not good.
- 2019 to 2021: ranges around 200-250 million per year.
- 2016 to 2018: ranges around say 250-300 million p.a. (volatile)
- 2012 to 2015: typically above 350 million p.a.

So, over past 10 years, their revenue has been on a downtrend.

They probably need to make a jump to around 260-270 milllion per year revenue and market will wake up and pay attention.

Looking closer at the 8 segments, they are not shrinking industry but looks to be enduring for a very long time (except perhaps for LED where one day, there will be newer and better ways).

However, the industries is not the problem per se - they are very competitive, and how GTRONIC executes, relative to their competitors, is probably the key. And the measure of execution success will go back to revenues and margins, especially over the long past, say past 5-10 years.

So, I keep coming back to the past - were they successful, what's the trend, how well do they execute, ... because that's probably going to be a very good indicator of their future success.

And with the new young CEO, suddenly, another question mark is thrown into the picture.

Anyone knows how much revenue they get for each of these segment?
1. integrated circuits,
2. chip carrier quartz crystal products,
3. optoelectronic products,
4. LED lighting system,
5. LED components and modules,
6. small outline components,
7. sensors and optical products and
8. technical plating services

Not sure of categorization. They lump all 8 together into 1 group, suggesting volatile revenues between groups. Not clear which carries higher margins but in H1/2022, total revenue drop vs H1/2021, but margins rise, so, probably more shift towards higher margin segments.

At the end of the day, this is a small / micro cap, so, performance will be super volatile (when it drops, it can drop hard, and vice versa) - need. a strong stomach
.

They sound cautious and prudent, pointing out challenges and how management has responded to those challenges - results were there - despite lower revenues in H1/2022 vs H1/2021, margins were better, so, that's good management. They think 2022 should be satisfactory, and if you trust them, then, that's probably true.

Personally, I like to invest in decent companies facing temporary problems where we have good chance of knowing that in 1-5 years time, they will solve their temporary problems and turnaround. Mr Market is emotional.

My only uncertainty is I don't really know their business, their people, their culture, the new young CEO, what proven experience does she have to turn around. But she's the daughter. And she has a lot to prove I guess. So, we'll see. I own < 2.5%, I may add when I see bottom but I plan to keep it small % because if I'm wrong, hopefully it doesn't hurt. But I'm optimistic.

Latest Q2 Prospects (Coy's own words):
The Group's operations may continue to be impacted from the highly infectious Omicron variant of Covid-19.
In addition, the semiconductor industry continues to experience challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical
issues resulting in supply chain disruption, uncertain end demand, rising inflation and manpower shortages.
The Group has taken measures and shall continue to strive to minimize any potential exposures or disruptions
arising from these challenges.
The business outlook is challenging with the unpredictable market conditions. The Group cautiously expect
the financial performance to remain satisfactory for Year 2022 amidst the uncertainties ahead.

Their business:
The Group’s operating segment comprises of only one key business activities, which is the manufacture,
assembly, testing and sales of integrated circuits, chip carrier quartz crystal products, optoelectronic products,
LED lighting system, LED components and modules, small outline components, sensors and optical products
and technical plating services for the semiconductor and electronics industries.

Their business prospects published in Annual Report (over 6 months old):

Prospects - The current pandemic did not end in year 2021 despite the introduction of vaccines globally, with demand and use of electronic gadgets, connectivity, cloud and virtual meetings continuing to be strong. The acceleration in the progress of 5G, artificial intelligent (“AI”) and IoT together with the adoption of electric vehicles (“EV”) are the technology themes that continue to create demand for chips and other components that help to proliferate the enabling of these technologies.
We continue to leverage our experience in miniaturized sensors to explore new product development exposure in the areas like bio sensing, 5G and advanced packaging that is poised to reap the benefits of these technology rollout. We also expect our existing product of laser headlamp components to show healthy growth while complementing the growth from adoption of EV and satisfying the hunger for new power efficient technology.
The continued US-China trade tensions would also provide outsourcing opportunities for companies like us in Malaysia as our potential customers assess the viability of shifting and diversifying their supply chains.
All these new opportunities are expected to fall nicely in place where our new factory expansion project of creating an additional 25,000 square feet of additional manufacturing space would be completed by Quarter 1 2022, thus ready to take on these new opportunities.

My thoughts: (1) They lost a major client last year, and scrambling to cover the gap created - that's a permanent loss, unless they can really cover. Pandemic didn't make it easy. (2) For their remaining business, continued demand means stability and maybe a little bit organic growth when business recover, so, near bottom. (3) They try to leverage on their sensor experience in new projects, but market is pessimistic and doesn't seem to be convinced - so, Company need to prove by launching and collecting monies. (4) New factor, creating extra 25,000 when just lost 1 big client is usually not convincing to market. So, market reacts by falling, which is typical short term mentality.

The key question is - are these permanent or temporary set backs? My guess is when they eventually cover their lost business, market will have forgotten the old loss and suddenly the share price can rise - so, if you buy, it means you must be confident that they will be able to turn around their business eventually. My problem is (4) - the timing is not so good. Maybe too ambitious? But no big mistake.

Price falls to RM1.04. Clear downtrend, not yet over. No rush to average down, but looking for some landing ground before adding. Won't chase as Price is fairly valued today relative to recent performance - compare to last year, this year's Operational Cash Flows has halved, their cash balance reduces slightly, suggesting challenges to monetize their products. But the reduced earnings still covers dividends very well. There's obviously large business fears here, so, has definite risks (it can go lower) but also potential future rewards too (it can go higher eventually). In a downtrend, it is risky to average down, so, better to just wait and watch until some stabilization.

Past couple weeks, YTL prints lower lows and possibly lower highs (although today is still not yet finished). If indeed lower highs, maybe got decent chance to get in at 55 sen.

Pinky, no need to be defensive ... welcome others to point out the Risks, because without Risks, there is no reward.

1. To me, you don't invest in REIT completely ignoring its NAV too. I too look at Definitely Dividend income as higher priority.
2. I don't see how you will get more than 100% occupancy. Sometimes, depending on price, yes, less than 100% occupancy. It's all about future price gains and future drivers to price growth.
I'm happy to hear you have a good laugh!

To keep the story short, comparing Q1 to Q2:
- Revenue shrunk -9% and further shrunk -11%: ASTRO needs to grow its future revenue.
- Lease on MEASAT3 transponders non-current loans grow USD900m. ASTRO is very serious to grow its future revenue.
- Price at 0.665 is all time low since inception.
What's your take? Is this company accepting its death? Or is this company fighting back extremely hard?
I am taking a bet it is fighting hard for its survival with its new Group CEO.

After earnings announcement on 26 Sep, the share price has broken support near 83.5 sen and crashed. I averaged down at 0.665, as it looks over-extended. That announcement showed increase in USD borrowings by nearly USD900m vs prior report. That's a massive increase in borrowings, equal to Astro's entire market cap of around RM3.5n. This is around the announcement change in Group CEO from Mr Henry Tan to Euan. As I look deeper, it's to lease more transponders on MEASAT3 satellite. My guess is ASTRO is not taking the price fall lightly but digging deeper to turnaround their business, looking for high future growth? If you are pessimistic about ASTRO's future, then, I guess this is getting to their grave faster with even bigger debts, if the business plan fails. ASTRO really need to explain better the future growth in their business plans, and I like to see Analysts comments to ASTRO management future business plans. As the price fall is over-extended to 0.665, I bought more. Let's see if this is a correct decision or not over the next few years. As usual, this is high risk, keep it a small % of one's diversified portfolio.

My one consolation is that ASTRO's dividend yield is high and is extremely well covered by their Operating Cash Flow. For 6m to 31/7, Operating cashflow is 665m vs Dividend bill of 182m; H1 earnings is 190m also covers it. So, near term dividends should be alright. But ASTRO manages its dividends soundly - if earnings fall, they'll reduce dividends which I like because that's a good sign of a soundly managed company. At RM0.665, the valuations are not demanding at all. A market cap of 3.5 billion generating 0.7m of Operating Cashflow over 6 months is very undemanding valuation.

I sold off all my GAMUDA at RM4. Made over 21% in less than a year. This Dividend Yield is 3%, so, the short gain is worth 7 years of dividends. I think, good odds that in next 7 years, price will go below RM4, so, on significant dips, I will come back in again if the business model doesn't break. I am a dividend investor with at least a 5 year future outlook.

I think, over next 5 years, the total dividend paid could look something like at least 50 sen. if so, that averages 10 sen annually over each year. So, a very prudent estimate of the average yearly dividend, over next 5 years, could be say 7 sen (the lowest it paid in 2020). 7 sen / 1.35 ~ 5%. Meaning if you buy at 1.35 and put it in a drawer and forget about this stock over the next 5 years, it is very good odds that not only will the company still be around, but probably have huge assets bigger than today. And to wait, you get paid on average 5% per year dividends in a very LUMPY fashion (i.e. 2023-2024 dividends could be zero, but 2025 could be something, 2026-2027 could be very large).

So, you must ignore price volatility in next 2 years, use weakness to prudently add, and don't measure your performance until after 2027.

The Company is not a regular Dividend Payor. It's history since 2017 is either zero dividend, 1 payment or at most 2 payments. The dividend paid (if I get this correct) since 2017 is:
2017 - zero
2018 - 23 sen (1 payment)
2019 - 17 sen (1 payment)
2020 - 7 sen (1 payment)
2021 - 21 sen (2 payments)
2022 - 21 sen (1 payment)
2023 - ???
2024 - ???
2025 - ???
2026 - ???
2027 - ???

To own this stock as a dividend owner, you have to look over the next 5 years because by 2025, hopefully, the assets they invested in will become productive and generate dividends bigger than 21 sen one day ... so, this one have to be super patient.

So, this stock price is still strongly downtrending and the past 2 weeks is just temporary support. We can't predict what price will do in the future, but if it breaks support, DO NOTHING until price shows us new support. Don't catch a falling knife. But if break support and stabilize to new support level, I will average down again there.

You can look at this company in several ways: (1) The Company's published Net Asset at 30/6 is 5.59. At 1.35, that is equal to 24 sen for every RM1. (2) At 1.35, the Company Market Value is RM3.1 billion. At 30/6, its Net Cash and Other Investment is worth RM3.2 billion i.e. all other assets in the company is effectively worth nil. (3) Its Net Cash and Other Investment is worth more than 1.35. Basically the remaining Net Asset (net of all liabilities) = 5.59 - 1.35 = 4.24 or roughly worth RM9.8 billion is valued by the market as ZERO. That's how much Margin of Safety there is in this stock. If this company gets liquidated, I think good odds total value receive from liquidating RM9.8 billion is worth a lot more than ZERO.

I have averaged down at $1.3x. The past 2 weeks, it seems to have stabilized after huge downfall from $1.9. Fundamentally, $1.3x is equal to its entire Net Cash position, meaning every other Net asset of the company is currently valued as zero. This usually means market is feeling extremely fearful. Notwitstanding, we already know its Net Cash will rapidly decline, as Company will convert Cash into Physical Assets, for its LINE project. If market keeps looking at Net Cash and putting Zero Value on all of its other assets, then, as Distressed Investor, I will keep buying at low prices because its other assets are not worth zero - it's worth something. If I take 100m and buy assets, the recent asset I bought should still be worth something close to 100m, not zero.

After its Q3/2022 quarterly report showing YTD Operating Cashflow of only 16m, market sentiment has changed and now becomes fearful, so, I think we may have seen a peak, unless next quarterly report can show substantially higher Operating Cashflow. Zhu Lian's yearly dividend payment cost is around 78m, to maintain its high dividend. If you linearly extrapolate 16m to full year, that is only 22m so, it will have to dip into its Net Cash chest. If you look at its Net Cash recently, it continues to decline as it dips into its Net Cash. So, you have to be confident that Zhu Lian can stop its Net Cash from declining, else, soon, it will have to cut its high dividends as it is not sustainable to keep paying 78m in dividends every year when operating cash inflow is much smaller. I suspect this stock can keep falling before it gets better, unless somebody knows that its underlying business will turn around. It's not fully without risk. Looking at its business, 37% revenues from Food and Beverages, 26% Health Nutritionals, 18% Personal Care, 10% jewelry, 9% others. The Covid pandemic has hurt its business, some temporary, some permanent because of consumer shifts to online purchasing. 70% of its revenue is exported to Thailand. So, hard to get an edge here and most players look at the Operating Cashflow as proof of a turnaround. The comparable number of this year's 16m is last year's >100m Operating Cashflow, so, that's a big big drop from last year. Even net of cash, based on last year's earnings, the business is priced at a P/E of 15 at RM1.91, meaning if this doesn't grow, then, it's rather expensive. I think this is why market doesn't know and price has been sideways range for 18 months. I like to think the next direction is up as Operating Cash of 16m is already so low, but who knows ... if that number keeps staying low, price can fall. Because of the uncertainty, a dividend investor's protection is to keep the total ownership of Zhulian to a small % of its portfolio, so that poor returns will not significantly impact one's dividend's portfolio.

CLMT acquired Sg Wang Plaza for 724m, which they duly write down to 442m at end last year. It's their biggest loss, but this is now history. Nevertheless, investors are still worried. The new CEO need to seriously consider selling off Sg Wang Plaza at fire sale price - if they get 300m for this, it's a great win and a huge cash injection which they can use to pay off the 1.4 billion debt and this will unlock CLMT value and price will skyrocket. Question is - at this market, who wants to pay 300m for Sg Wang? Smart of management to get management expenses as extra units when price is low - at the right time, they can take action as and when they see fit to unlock value.

Whilst AXREIT is HLInvest top pick (and it's a well managed REIT), bear in mind 3 risks: 1. Its gearing ratio is rising rapidly, due to large acquisitions this year - whilst necessary to grow future revenue, it comes with higher risks. 2. With so many properties at 100% occupancy, future growth is limited, and more downside risks than upside risk. 3. With current price at 1.86 being higher than NAV of 1.55, this is +20% premium to Net Asset Value to reflect future growth prospects. If the future disappoints then, price falls. AXREIT is 2% of my portfolio, but I don't think I want to add to it yet until price falls near its NAV but unlikely to happen unless there is some crisis/huge disappointment.

A distressed investor, banking on future recoveries, have to be very patient (many years), willing to accept continued dividend cuts. As to when a catalyst can occur to cause a re-rating, this is hard to see. I would like to see stronger management decisions, e.g. sell some properties to reduce borrowings then this cash will propel the stock price but question is - when is management going to do this and can they realize their worse properties? Who is going to buy at this market?

It's main property is Vista Tower office building, recently revalued to RM523m, worth 37% of its REIT assets. The gross rental income (before expenses, before interest) have gone down a lot from 40m, 33m, 27m (2019-2021), with around 53% (?) occupancy in highly competitive KL office space where average occupancy is higher than 53%. The big question mark is can its gross rental income rise back to pre-pandemic levels and how many years will that take (if it can)? Or have we gone to a new norm. Management needs to be ruthless - the main drag is RM650m plus borrowings with large Financing costs. Having huge asset values at surplus is meaningless if rental income doesn't come in but having to keep paying interest on loans. It needs to sell some buildings to realize its values, pay off the loans and suddenly, this will unlock a lot of monies and this stock price can then rise again. The question is - can management realize the market values at a sale around this time? Or are the "market values" noted in the books not real today but assumes reversion? Hence the huge discount to Net Asset Values. For minor properties like the Alor Setar ex-Holiday Villa that is only worth RM26m and zero occupancy, better to just sell that off - even if collect less than 26m, at least the occupancy rates for the whole REIT looks better on paper. I suspect the reason they are not selling is because they might not even get 20m and if true, then, that would set a bad precedence for the rest of the properties in their books that needs to be marked down.

Right now, market seems worried about upcoming Sep report, someone already knew the results and dumping. Quite a few concerns with this counter: 1. Further decline in revenues (risky)? 2. Rising interest rates causing higher interest payment? 3. As it is, YTD Jun report showed Operating Cashflows not quite meet Dividends and Interest payments. So, if YTD Sep report shows lower revenues, then, more likely next year's Dividends may be lower than 2022. 4. Asset revaluation risks? (good buffer on paper, but unknown).