This counter is somehow not recommended by many investment banks. ASM and ASB have been selling MNRB shares for the past one and a half years. The only plus side is the 32% dividend to be announced later this month.

Remember to sell also once you make some money. The largest share holder, ASB may decide to unload some shares. It has been trimming on its MNRB shares for the past year.

You are quite right. Small share holders are disadvantaged.

Nobody can claim that he is an expert. Savvy speculators may make more money in the stock market. MNRB has been a profitable company over the past 5 years, net earnings per share ranged from a low of 12.3 sen during financial year ending 31/3/2009 to a high of 57.7 sen during financial year ending 31/3/2011. The average EPS over the 5 year period was about 38 sen. 7 to 8 years ago, the top 30 largest share holders still held over 90% of MNRB shares. Today it has dropped to just over 70%, meaning major share holders have been selling MNRB shares.

The directors of a listed company would only want to privatize their company if they find that the company shares are undervalued. If they have to re-value the company assets to the market value, then there is no more temptation for them to privatize the company. Of course Keck Seng directors can't privatize the company by offering its minority share holders a price based on Keck Seng's share price plus a slight premium as the company has huge chunks of land not re-valued since the early 1980s. The land price could fetch as high as 80 times over its book value.I think the SEC has a say on this.

Keck Seng directors, majority share holders and their associates together own about 61% of Keck Seng shares. This means another 39% of Keck Seng shares are in the hands of the public. I believe most of these share holders are Malaysians.

Abudance, Mbf Holdings had paid a special dividend of 40 sen gross on the 31/5/13.

eth6769, Oriental Holdings has net cash of around RM 2.3 billion. Its market cap is RM 6 billion. Keck Seng has net cash of over RM 760 million. Its market cap is only RM 1.93 billion. Keck Seng also has share investments worth over RM 500 million. Oriental has much less.

nightrader, Keck Seng has net cash of over RM 750 million, more than twice its paid up capital. Name me another company listed on Bursa which has Keck Seng's enviable cash position?

Share holders prefer cash, not bonus issue. I think it is not going to be another flash in the pan this time. Keck Seng shares have gone up and down too many times. With the dateline for announcing a special dividend (if any) approaching, some speculative play is in the offing. Ini kali lah!

Investors are hoping for a special franked dividend of RM 960 per 1000 shares. Keck Seng shares won't go up if investors are expecting a RM 40 dividend.

During the 2006/07 bull-run, Keck Seng’s investments in listed company shares peaked at over RM 750 million. It disposed of less than 3% of its shareholdings (net). In the ensuing world financial crisis of 2008/09, the value of Keck Seng’s share holdings dropped by over 50% at its nadir. Buy Keck Seng only if you are able to hold for some time. Looks like there might be some speculative play on Keck Seng shares leading to the announcement of the interim dividend, hopefully the special dividend as well before the end of the month.

They were savvy when they made investments in Parkway Holdings, PPB Group and Chin Teck. When it comes to disposing of shares, they are not savvy at all. I bet they could be still holding Parkway Holdings shares if Khazanah had not made a GO.

You seem to be very optimistic of a special dividend payment but the company is under no obligation to do this. Of course if the company fails to declare a special dividend, its directors would be bombarded during the AGM next year.After disposing of Parkway Holdings shares more than 3 years ago, they should have re-invested the money instead of keeping it in Singapore banks and earning just 1% interest a year. If they had bought land in JB, the total return could have been 50% over the 3 year period.

Accumulation of L&G shares certainly taking place.

Are you sure or it is just your wishful thinking? Don't bring us to Holland.

The Ho family members are all Singaporeans. Singapore'a tax rate is much lower than Malaysia. I wonder how Singaporeans can claim back their tax refund should Keck Seng decide to pay a special dividend. Here if you are retired and have no income, you can claim back the 25% tax which has been deducted in full, unless of course you dividend income amounts to tens of thousands.

Sentiment is bad.

Kutty123, that is why most investors (punters?) lose money. If you are convinced that a company is good, buy its shares if they have dropped to attractive levels.

Don't be too pessimistic. Every one was very optimistic at the beginning of the month. TA's NTA is over RM 1.60. If it drops to 50 sen again, buy aggressively. It will claw back to above 70 sen again one day. Even if this happens two years later, you still stand to make a handsome gain, much, much better than keeping money in the bank.

Many people know that Keck Seng is a cash and asset rich company. It has over RM 800 million in cash and its share investments in listed companies are worth over RM 500 million. Its flagship building, the Menara Keck Seng has a book value of only RM 55 million. You can't get this building for less than RM 150 million even in a fire sale. Its other building, a high end condominium block at Bukit Ceylon, KL has a book value of RM 53 million or RM 244 per sq ft. Over 8,000 acres of its plantation land near to the Pasir Gudang Industrial Estate have a book value of between RM 4,200 to RM 7,400 per acre. Even land in rural areas can fetch over RM 100,000 per acre now. But what can you do? Can you point a gun at the Directors and forced them to re-value its assets or take out a few hundred million to pay as dividend? So just wait lah.

Looks like there is some interest in this stock lately. An opportunity to take profit/cut loss if the price goes up further.

There is hardy any retail interest. The price is being manipulated.

If Keck Seng directors are rewarding the right people, then Keck Seng shares should go up, like a rocket.

I hope Keck Seng's directors are smart enough to give the money to its shareholders rather than the Inland Revenue Department Malaysia.

Last year, MNRB officially announced the proposed first and final dividend on the 30/8/12 and payable on 26/10/12. The date for the first and final dividend to be announced this year is expected to be about the same as last year. Approval by shareholders at the forthcoming AGM to be held in late September is only a formality. Once officially announced and with the ex-date and date of payment known, I believe MNRB’s share price will move by over 5% from the present level. Just look at the performance of Perstima shares after the official announcement of a 26.5 sen dividend.

Last year, Keck Seng announced the interim dividend on the 27/8, the same day as they announced the 1st quarter financial results. Be patient, only less than 6 more weeks to wait and hopefully the directors will announce an interim dividend plus a special dividend. Even if a special dividend is not announced, I believe there might be another speculative play on Keck Seng shares within the next few weeks. Keck Seng still has over RM 300 million which the company can make use of to pay franked dividends. If the anticipated special dividend payment does not materialize, the Department of Inland Revenue Malaysia would stand to make a huge gain. Not a word of thanks from them definitely.

Jaks has been trading actively for 3 days on 3/7, 4/7 and 5/7. Over 85 million shares changed hands during these 3 days. Looks like most buyers were able to pick up the shares. The prospect seems good.

Thank you for your enlightenment Mr Chong. If you can't convert the call warrants into Keck Seng shares, what did people buy the call warrants for? No wonder Keck Seng made no mention of the call warrants in its annual report.

The Directors could not have arbitrarily set the conversion price at RM 5.68. There must be some basis.

Nobody can predict the market's direction. TA shares went up to over RM 2.00 during the 2006/07 bull run. The index today is over 15% higher than the peak achieved 6 years ago but look at the performance of TA shares. TA doesn't seem to be on the radar screen of institutional investors and syndicates. Things may change.

You can get all this info from Bursa web site.

Did you know that Keck Seng had issued a certain number of call warrants recently? Holders of Keck Seng call warrants can convert 8 call warrants into 1 Keck Seng share at a conversion price of RM 5.68 per share.The expiry date for the call warrants is 15/1/14.

As far as I am aware, companies listed on bursa should start paying tax exempt dividends starting 2008, only companies with sufficient tax credit could still pay franked dividends till 2013. Companies like BAT, Acoustec, Yilai etc had already started paying tax exempt dividends years ago because they are high dividend payers and had used up their tax credit. I hope I am not wrong.

If the company can maintain its earnings this year, its share price should shoot past RM 4.00 per share. In 2006/07 MNRB touched RM5.80 per share.

Keck Seng can buy up these shares in 4 years. I only wanted to stress that Keck Seng has lots of cash.

For those of you who bothered to read the latest circular to shareholders, you would find that as at 6 May 2013, there were about 140 million Keck Seng shares not held by its directors, major shareholders and associates of directors/shareholders, so-called public shareholding spread. With cash reserve of over RM800 million, Keck Seng is able to buy up all these shares from the open market at RM 5.70 per piece. Think about this.

MNRB have not paid such high dividend for many years. The last time they paid a dividend higher than this financial year was 6 or 7 years ago, after they disposed of MOX and made a huge profit. I think they are trying to use up all their tax credit before it expires end of the year.

Keck Seng has again sought shareholders’ mandate to buy back up to 10% of the company’s shares. Keck Seng is trading at a prospective PE of around 20, meaning if Keck Seng buys back its own shares, the net return would be 5%. Keck Seng’s cash reserves of over RM720 million only earned the group RM8.5 million of interest last year. Do you know how to calculate the annual rate of return? The most logical thing Keck Seng’s directors should do is to immediately embark on the share buy back until the 10% limit is reached.

I don't think the MD sold the shares himself, more likely to be forced selling by the banks.

The message I am trying to convey is, Keck Seng has been in the hands of honest people since its listing, otherwise the company would not be able to amass such a vast amount of cash pile.With so much cash around, the temptation to commit fraud is always there, I mean for other companies. I had already mentioned in my earlier post that Keck Seng directors did not cheat share holders.Moreover, Keck Seng is not the only stingy company around. Of course I would like Keck Seng's directors to be as aggressive as Mah Sing's Leong or SP Setia's Liew.

London Biscuits directors are still hatching the latest quarterly financial result. Don't know when they can hatch out the chickens.

It is so easy for company directors to cheat. Accounts could be manipulated and hundreds of millions could be siphoned out for personal purposes. Have you all heard of Cold Storage Malaysia and Megan Media? The companies lost a few hundred million each due to dishonest company directors. Our laws are so lax. I don't think any one has been charged till today.

Made 8 sen per share. Could have made 14 sen per share if not for an impairment loss of 6 sen per share. Not really that bad.

I agree with you smartly. Years ago I invested in their family company, a plantation company called Harlen. You know even Bumi managed companies could yield 18 tons of FFB per hectare per year but Harlen's plantations could only yield 13 tons per year.

The Ho family controls just over 60% of Keck Seng. They are extremely conservative but at least they don't cheat you. Keck Seng's cash reserve has now shot past RM 800 million and its investments in shares are worth over RM 500 million.Compare Keck Seng with other Johor based companies like London Biscuits (financial results to 31/3/13 still not announced)and Harlen. If you have investment in these two companies, you will have sleepless nights.

Before 2008, the Govt. considered that the earnings of a Company were also your earnings. Say you received a gross dividend of RM4,000/- in 2007 and the corporate tax rate was 25%, the net dividend received by you would be RM3,000/-, with the other RM1,000/- being paid by the Company to the income tax department on your behalf which you could claim back later partly or fully or none at all depending on the maximum tax rate you had to pay. Some stingy Companies like Keck Seng paid much less to share-holders than they earned. As a result, they accumulated huge retained earnings over the years which they were given until end of this year to pay out to share-holders as franked dividends (in which you can claim back the tax paid as before). The Govt. has a lot to gain if Keck Seng does not opt to take the opportunity to reward its share-holders with a bumper dividend. You never know what this group of conservative people in charge will do. Let’s hope for the best.

Keck Seng is a counter which should be kept as long term investment. It has net cash of RM750 million and share investment amounting to RM480 million. Whether the share market goes up or down doesn’t really matter, both present opportunities to the Company. The only setback is its directors are extremely conservative. Keck Seng has substantial land bank located at the Permas state constituency, over 9000 acres which forms the south eastern part of the Iskandar Development Region. The region’s new state assemblyman is Datuk Khaled Nordin who has been appointed Johor’s Menteri Besar. Expect the rapid development which takes place in the western part of the IDR to slowly spread to the eastern part. Moreover, Singapore’s Changi Airport is less than 10 km away.