Hi Stockraider, I think Guocera should split from HLIND and pay the cash out as dividend so that we have the freedom whether or not to put that money into Guocera. So I think it has not done the best for shareholders like us. The earning and yield is still OK, but not attractive. It is a kind of stock you can only trust with a small percentage of your asset just like a stabiliser in a bottle of peanut butter.

Not likely to declare special dividend this year because the CEO mentioned before that they do not wish to increase the frequency of paying dividend in order to save cost. But we should not exclude the possibility of such corporate proposal in coming years. And of course, I will give this proposal a warm welcome.

Only when you can't take down that buffalo alone then only you look for a partner to do it, right? You look for a partner or associated company only when this is more profitable than you doing it alone, at least this is what normal shareholders think.

Hi Kwteoh, you're right that Wistron holds FPI shares. Wistron used to give some business to FPI, but contribution from Wistron has gradually reduce for the past 3 years (this is a public info you can get from Annual report). Why isn't possible for Wistron to take back a good business that she had once before awarded to its associated company (FPI) "to reward her shareholders"? If you as a Wistron's major shareholder and you win Sonos' contract through your own effort, why share it with people when you have already built your capacity to DIY?

I do not have evidence that FPI did not benefit from Sonos, but based on the revenue I believe so. I didn't see exploding growth of revenue in 2022.

Hi Pinnaclegrade,
1) Sonos' project goes to Wistron, and no longer to FPI anymore. FPI is not getting anything from there, not even the bread crust drops from the table.
2) But I think 2.66 is a good or reasonable price, even though I do not pick it up at this price.

Hi Lionel Messi, I agree that is not a con man. The biggest problem is I feel he is stingy lah. Already so much cash why not increase the payout ratio to 90%-100% woh. Everybody is getting old liao. Already hold more than 5 years lo. This durian tree only give me banana every year.

Whole Peninsular FFB yield drop in Mar. In Perak, average dropped 18.2% for all plantations. But UTDPLT suffer higher loss, exceeding 20%.

If anyone is interested can just drive your car to Guocera factory in Kluang. It can be observed from the road side. You can see piles and piles of rubbles at the construction site. I think it has started to burn money while the new factory takes time to build.

The project for the new RM 400 mil porcelain plant is real. Many old factory buildings have been demolished. I visited the site. I don't think there is a turning back for this plan. A bit disappointed because this is not the best dream I had with the company's cash.

Hi Observatory, ya your calculation is correct. I made a mistake in calculating the Jan-Mar CPO production this year.

Hi Observatory, although there is drastic drop in Mar yoy, Q1 CPO production increase 1.2% yoy, which is already considered exceptional for the whole Q1 because this is achieved with 2.7% less trees in the golden age yoy. The number of trees in golden age will further reduce by 1.3% next year, according to my maths.

I think Indonesia started as a small player too, and then rapidly outgrow Malaysia. India may be more protective and may be more challenging for Malaysian plantation company to invest there. Not only they have labour advantage, the market is there means they also have tariff and delivery cost advantage. One more thing, if their government allow, they don't even need to be RSPO certified. Long time ago people told me there's almost no net cost to clear a forest to cultivate oil palm because the log could be sold and the profit is more than enough to cover planting cost. And the most important thing is, the land is so cheap (at that time). I think the land of the virgin forest in India is A LOT cheaper than here in Malaysia. All of these advantages could buy them time to learn to be an efficient planter.

Hi dam82, I checked those too. The conclusion is that the company won't get bankrupt. But large price movement could still happen (which implies that it could still surprise you despite many things have been checked because there is always something else we did not check :). The historical price chart tells the truth. I used to be betting heavily in Guiness (before it was renamed as Heineken). It kept me safe in 2008. After sometime I quit because I thought it was overpriced. At that time Guiness's market share was #1 in Malaysia and one of my concern is whether or not it beat Carlsberg everytime I read the report. Guiness sells Heineken at that time and Heineken was so popular that Carlsberg in the end has to sell Asahi to counter the competition. Consumer sector was my favourite until mid of 2010-2020. I have only one problem with Heineken / Carlsberg in Malaysia - limited market size and declining demographic. But since you mentioned that, I'll take a look again.

Everytime when I buy a stock, I'd like to know how much it would drop in worst case, not just how far it can fly. So you don't get panic when price goes the other direction and ask people how could this happen, out of stress. What is more important to consider is always the negatives. After you have gone through all the negatives points, and finally you press the "buy" button anyhow, you'll have least regret. That's just me.

I think the profit you would be able to make depends more on what price you buy, rather than at what price you sell. It is always easier to buy than to sell. Never afraid of loosing a buying opportunity because you can always wait for another. If you have to ask someone, that means you are not confident. You may feel miserable to enter at this price when it fluctuates. The most difficult part of investing is not knowledge but patience and emotion. So only buy at a price you feel very comfortable with. I never ask anyone at what price should I buy or sell, because when it comes to this matter, you should trust only yourself.

If you think the price will remain the same until just before ex-date, then buy after ex-date because you can save (i) trading cost including stamp duty (ii) interest. If you want to minimize the risk, then buy some days after ex-date. This is because at this point of time all the motivated sellers would have sold their shares.

I agree with dam82, with UP you can sleep for a while. How deep you can sleep depends on at what price you bought. If you buy at 16.40, you must wake up faster than all of us. Haha.

Hi Abrahmi, I can't say you are wrong if you want to buy at 16.40 a piece. But you must have long legs and be able to run fast as you are walking through the mouth of the alligator. You must have both the speed and alert to run when the sentiment swing. Sometime price does not reflect the fundamental or future change until a big investor decide it is time to quit / profit take and the price may landslide faster than you could react. Even so you must have the courage to cut loss, or got your capital trapped for a long long period (years). Normally fundamental investor will tell you to buy when market is very pessimistic so buy when the blog is very quite when no one is interested to post and the trading volume is very low (banker likes to collect when volume is very low for extended period). I can't say you have no chance to make profit entering at 16.40 but for me, I'd hesitate. And I think people like Ooi hesitates too (otherwise he will just keep quite to buy instead of shouting here and there).

I think the above 2 news has to be read together. If you just read one source, you may not understand.

$19 bil means almost half of the imported volume of year 2022. India has the largest arrable land in the world. 50% of their land is arable.

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indian-state-bets-big-oil-palm-cut-19-billion-vegoil-imports-2022-08-03/

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/node/657471

Last year revenue Q4 higher because customer delayed shipment Q3 last year due to expensive shipping cost.

Q4 revenue drop simply because customer placed order earlier in Q3 to avoid missing Christmas and boxing day.

Hi Pinky, yes I recalled that. That was the best time to buy compares to now. It is when market get "shocked", "ambushed" (at fair bit of shareholders felt so) without being able to see one year ahead. Similar thing happened to FPI in the last quarter. You wanna make big profit, you gotta have guts during these "crisis" time (when there is no crisis but looks like there is a crisis). If we want to maximize our profit we should not just know how we think but also how other people think.

From 2014 to 2019, it started with a big drop of dividend in 2015 and then basically in a down trend till 2019. That's why I say dividend cannot be consistent and it depends on the earning. Dividend payout rate can be consistent as it has to adhere to the dividend policy but the amount is subject to change depends on earnings. I think this is a basic that we do not need to argue. And I think people are least interested in who pick up a stock at x price. At any price, there will be a buyer and seller, and ikan bilis like you and me is not going to be able to distort the volume. Unless you are big guy like EPF or a fund manager then only people are interested. However, fund manager doesn't talk like that.

I could be wrong, so does the technical signal. We are just here to share facts and opinion base on facts.

Technically also, the force going north has been loosing steam. It has tested the peak 3 times but couldn't get through. In a battle, if you charge 3 times and cannot break through enemy's line, you'd get exhausted and facing the difficulty to hold the line when the enemy charge back.

Dividend would not and will never be stable, because earning will be highly dependent on commodity price and cost which all of these are variables. What has been stable was the generosity of the board of directors and the major shareholder, I think. But however generous they are, still, what the shareholder is possible to reap still depends on those variables.

Buy or sell decision on a specific price should be based on many factor including one's portfolio and risk profile etc, etc, etc... It could be good for one person but bad for another. What we are discussing here is just all essential information and phenomenon observed, regardless whether or not it is a positive or negative to the share price. Individual investor should further analyse what is the best for them. I believe most of the investors prefer to have all the info or as much info as possible regardless of what decision they are going to make.

It takes 7 years for the newly planted trees to reach prime age. Central Banks in many countries including Malaysia will continue to raise interest rate. When interest rate goes up, cosy to hold inventories will be higher. This will discourage the cooking oil companies to keep stock in their warehouse, meaning they will delay the purchase, weakening short-term demand / selling price. Big consumers like Bangladesh, Pakistan are facing economy problem and this may reduce their purchasing power too. So there might be further down side to the 3500++ RM/Mt mentioned above.

Normally the share price reflects the future stock value rather than current value. While fertiliser price is in down trend, in short-term the fertiliser cost is not going down immediately because large plantation usually buy furtiliser via contract inked months if not a year earlier. Plus, the FCPO May 2024 has gone down to 3500++. Another cost, which is labour cost, unlike fertliser cost, will only go up and never come down. So future CPO price drop and labour cost increase may outweigh the fertiliser cost reduction. That's the risk of buying at current share price. Yes, we can get good dividend this year and maybe early next year too but what's next?

21 sen dividend per year will continue to be an amount that the company is at a comfortable position to pay for FY 2023. EPS will be definitely more than enough to cushion that. And the company is definitely capable of paying a higher dividend.

Hi Gooman, how is this related to FPI?

Hi Ooi, ya they missed out coconut selling price for 2022. I tried to ask a local planter here they say wholesale price is RM 1.50 so probably the same or higher for UTDPLT as the quality might be higher and more bargaining power as a much bigger supplier. Of course I could write to them but I don't think they bother to answer because I tried to ask other questions before but received no reply. Maybe I didn't buy much enough of the shares. :)

Hi Pinky, I think probably because initially the profitability of palm oil plantation is higher than coconut plantation and it takes time to switch more back to coconut and the newly planted area should be close to the existing estate in order to be cost effective. Also, if coconut requires more labour it also discourage the company to do so when in the past years facing labour shortage.

Hi Ooi & GS, thanks for the info. Then here are my findings/question:
1. Sime Darby said they now 1 worker for 15 Ha and want to push up to 17 Ha. Quite unbelievable as they are not so profitable. https://www.theedgemarkets.com/node/658064
2. If we sum up the number of guest worker in Malaysia and PTSSS (3231 + 1151 = 4382) divide by matured planted area for both palm oil and coconut plantation (42789 + 3847 = 46636 Ha) give us 9.4 Ha, which is less than 12 Ha. That means, coconut plantation is more labour intensive than palm oil plantation.

So you should instead appreciate that when you read the minute, if you really did read it.

Actually I did read the minute before I posted my question. So please don't simply comment. Not only that, I did attend the AGM and asked a few questions.

In UTDPLT how many Ha of matured palm oil a worker could cover?

Hi Observatory, cant expect production output increase because the matured planted area of coconut slightly reduced. Total planted area however remains the same.

Hi Ooihk, because I like to interact with other bright investors and get their thoughts too. And I think this is one of the many purposes to have this forum.

Hi Ahlian, it is definitely more than 10% but less than 15%. According to my research, profit margin could be considerably larger. And yes Ahlian, I also found that coconut price (wholesale price) is very stable over the years. The cost and earnings from the coconut plantation helps to answer many questions in my mind before and that's why I asked. Ahlian, mind to share the average cost of small planter in Malaysia to manage a single Ha of matured palm oil plantation, including labour, fertiliser, fuel and everything? Thanks.

Hi Ooihk899, it could be significant depending on the selling price and cost. If not significant utdplt won't bother to plant.

Anyone know the average cost and selling price for one coconut? Couldn't find in the annual report. Appreciate if someone is able to find out.

Does anyone know Mr. Shih Chao Yuan chinese name?

Hi Peace99, the most difficult part is when some of the lab workers from overseas cant stand durian smell. And if the top management has to check the quality of the fruit personally to qualify the seedling but fainted due to the unique aroma. It may be a great torture to them.

Haha. Good guess

I think Q4 profit will be very close to Q3, maybe slightly more. Let's see.