Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-12 22:31 | Report Abuse

I am really puzzled by iCAP advertising on low risk, high return.

Let's not talk about low risk first, just talk about high return. Is 4.5% share price CAGR high return???? 1 year, 2 year okay la but we are talking about 17 years!

Any lawyer around here? Can we stop iCAP to continue to advertise low risk, high return? They cannot keep saying not happy don't buy la.

"The Consumer Protection Act 1999 makes false and misleading advertising a criminal offence."

https://www.eraconsumer.org/eraconsumer/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=234:misleading-advertising&catid=80:consumer-law&Itemid=106#:~:text=The%20Consumer%20Protection%20Act%201999,purchase%20of%20goods%20and%20services.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-12 23:04 | Report Abuse

@FastMoney the words low and high by themselves are not legally defined, so it is different from the case with the foreign shareholding limit thingy, which is a simple case of true or false and can be stopped with a court injunction.

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2023-11-13 02:26 | Report Abuse

icapital.biz Berhad is neither the largest nor the oldest closed-end fund in the world. It is not even the largest publicly listed company in Malaysia. One thing is for sure though. icapital.biz Berhad is easily the most unique closed end fund in the world and certainly the most priceless publicly listed company in Malaysia. These are not false claims or empty boasting or chest thumping.

icapital.biz Berhad successfully conducted its 19th annual general meeting (AGM) on Saturday, 4th Nov 2023. There were numerous attempts by City of London Investment Management, Pop Investment Ltd and their local running dogs to disrupt the said AGM.

Despite their coordinated campaigns, they failed miserably again. Why?


i Capital Newsletter Volume 35 Issue 12

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 13:02 | Report Abuse

Have a listen to Prof Fama on value investing, expected return and risk premia @ min 12:30

https://youtu.be/uIYzNxaMaX8

Also his view on AI and investing @ min 21:35

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-14 15:44 | Report Abuse

@FastMoney Don't waste your time on this, TTB already said that Chicago Business School is teaching rubbish during the AGM! You have missed the Aussie professors' enlightening lectures instead, a novel theory on dividend and share price that can supersede the decades old M&M Theorem.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 15:52 | Report Abuse

Haha! Then all the finance students should tear their textbooks....all other foundations such as CAPM, Markowitz portfolio theory and Black-Scholes pricing option model must be deviant teachings also. All must go back to cave and do a barter system. ☹

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 15:57 | Report Abuse

Also all other all other basis of M & A to pay a company by discounting it at a proper discount rate on its ability to generate future cash flow/earnings + terminal value must be also throw into a black hole.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 16:15 | Report Abuse

If the fund manager want to lan si, then compare to another fund manager

Eastspring Investments Small-cap Fund

It was established in year 2001 about 4 years earlier than iCAP, generating return of 1064.63%, CAGR of 11.5% over 22 years. They went through all of kind of big or small bear markets and similar lau sai KLSE market also.

Do people so lan si, trumpeting they are better than the best?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-14 16:37 | Report Abuse

What to do, as John Dough has said, if the fund manager beats the market all these years, what's the use of all this EMT? Don't apply to CDAM.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 16:47 | Report Abuse

Prof Fama said when they studied the fund management as a population, it can't beat market over a long period of time after management fees and other costs. Some lucky managers can but will be at the expense of other active managers -- question will be, for how long?

Posted by i3lurker > 2023-11-14 16:47 | Report Abuse

/////////City of London Investment Management, Pop Investment Ltd and their local running dogs to disrupt the said AGM.//////////

1) there are dogs?
2) these dogs are running?
3) are these dogs fed?

Posted by i3lurker > 2023-11-14 17:12 | Report Abuse

Running dog is a pejorative term for an unprincipled person who helps or flatters those who are more powerful and often evil. It is a literal translation of the Chinese pejorative 走狗 (pinyin: zǒugǒu), meaning a yes-man or lackey, and is derived from the tendency of dogs to follow after humans in hopes of receiving food scraps. Historian Yuan-tsung Chen notes that "In the West, a dog is a man's best friend; but in China, dogs are abject creatures. In Chinese, no idiomatic expression [is] more demeaning than the term 'running dogs.'"[1]

The term "imperialist running dog" (帝国主义走狗; dìguó zhǔyì de zǒugǒu) was used by Mao Zedong to refer to allies of counterrevolutionary imperialist forces.[2] Historian Chang-tai Hung suggests the term was used to invoke negative mental imagery; "The image of ... a running dog parallels that of the United States as a wolf. Both bestial representations provide convenient and familiar symbols that political artists can target, but they also validate the use of violence since the annihilation of beasts is justified. ... [The representations of enemies as beasts such as running dogs or rats] call to mind repulsive creatures that inflict damage on the nation."[3]

In 1950, an article in The China Weekly Review gave the definition "A running-dog is a lackey, one who aids and accompanies in the hope of being treated kindly and perhaps being allowed to share in the spoils."[4]

In 1953, a Saturday Evening Post article offered a definition for tso kou ("running dog") and kou t'ui tee ("dog's hips"), saying "A 'running dog' was a person who follows obediently after the person whose dog he is, a fellow traveler; a 'dog's hips' was simply an enthusiastic running dog, who exercises his hips while running errands for his master."[5]

Historian James Reeve Pusey captures some of the power of the idiom when telling of Lu Xun's reaction to seeing people in power mistreat others with the idiom "the weak are the meat of the strong".[6] Lu's anger spilt over to the point of having a reaction even against those calling for resistance without vengeance "For the loudest of such people, he thought, were running dogs of the people-eaters, fed at least on scraps of human flesh."[6]

The phrase running dog has been in use since the Qing Dynasty, and was often used in the 20th century by communists to refer to client states of the United States and other capitalist powers. Its first recorded use in English was in Edgar Snow's 1937 reportage Red Star Over China:

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 17:38 | Report Abuse

😂😂
Was not aware of dogs in the AGM... Another imaginary enemies? . If he hates COL and Pop, put some poops in their mouth and face. Why suddenly dragged dogs running in the auditorium? I thought was a peaceful AGM and only issue that felt it outside the auditorium somebody hide the legal costs of 800 k without any explanation?

Posted by i3lurker > 2023-11-14 18:58 | Report Abuse

if you are not aware of any running dog then it could be a Stealth Running Dog.

if AGM = peaceful means dy/dx -> approaches Zero

since they is an "önly" issue, it means dy/dx = 1

a non-zero solution of dy/dx means => AGM disrupted

QED

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 20:46 | Report Abuse

IMHO, the "only" issue should be solved using Newton's third law.

Basically postulates that when two bodies interact, they apply forces to one another that are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

The there is a ka ka jiao jiao(action), surely there is ka ka jiao jiao(reaction) with same magnitude of force.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 20:50 | Report Abuse

When he feels that his ka ka jiao jiao is justified in the name of protecting the 400 retail investors, other people (minus the invisible dogs) too justified that their ka ka jiao jioa in the names of 2,700 of other silent retail investors. The result is dy/dx > ZERO.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-14 22:08 | Report Abuse

@FastMoney I must thank you for this refresher course on the conventional wisdom of portfolio management by Prof. Fama. I was too chicken to take his course during my time because of its well earned reputation of being a tough one for the non-math inclined. Prof Merton Miller's was a softer alternative and just as relevant in dealing with iCapital's claims.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 22:55 | Report Abuse

@dumbMoney - Prof Miller as I looked up for his M&M theorem and try to understand it & say it in my own words will be something like this, first bring in the bacon...if you got plenty of bacons(earnings, 15% CAGR NAV, etc) you don't have to worry about how to slice and dice it(aka why worry about dividend, need cash sell some bacons), the market will be smart enough to recognize the size your bacons you brought in by giving you due valuation. The trouble is the FM stopped bringing in bacons since 2014, so smart Alecs would start to sell their holdings and keep it in FD earning interest minus the management fees, that how gotten such a deep irrational discounts as much as 40%. Instead of accepting this normal people conventional wisdom, FM blame gweilo and dogs and wreckers. people are not dummy okay...that's how normal people apply EMT.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 22:58 | Report Abuse

More technical explanations on M&M theory can be found at Investopedia:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/modigliani-millertheorem.asp#:~:text=The%20Modigliani%2DMiller%20theorem%20(M%26M)%20states%20that%20the%20market,independent%20of%20its%20capital%20structure.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 23:04 | Report Abuse

☝for the benefits of others who want to know more as you often heard about this M&M theorem. It's one of the finance backbone we use it so often and taken it for granted.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-14 23:10 | Report Abuse

Also on dividend irrelevance explanation:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dividendirrelevance.asp

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-14 23:46 | Report Abuse

Wah, based on the number of responses that John Dough elicited from his single post, he must have stirred a hornet's nest here, but somehow, he seems immune from their stings, unlike Patient Investor, who is smart enough not to fight the odds.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-14 23:50 | Report Abuse

By allowing the last minute injunction against iCap, the court appears to be aiding and abetting the foreigners, but to protest this will be in contempt, so just blame the foreigners for disrupting their well planned scheme to deprive some shareholders of the rightful votes at the AGM as provided for in the constitution.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-15 01:22 | Report Abuse

When Prof Fama attributed the outperformance of some managers as luck, this is how the numbers work out. If the manager picks the same number of good stocks and bad stocks, as what chance or luck would prescribe, the worst that can happen to the bad selections is a 100% loss and that's it, whereas the good stocks can grow into a 10 bagger, and just one of these would be enough to compensate for 10 complete wipe outs on the losing side, so the distribution of returns have a longer tail on the positive side than on the negative side. Simple statistics. So with just two of these 10 baggers, the fund manager would have turned out to be a super duper stock selector by just sheer luck. And this can only be discovered after the fact. If a fund manager ex-ante can tell how his stock selection can turn out 10 years from now, he don't need to be a fund manager, just manage his own money and make all the money for himself instead of the investors just for the miserable 1.5% annual management fee. As Prof Fama has joked, if someone can devise an AI algorithm to select winning stocks, he is going to keep it all to himself instead of taking it public. The nearest equivalent are the hedge fund managers, the 2+20 crowd. For them, scale is everything. 20% of a billion is 200 million, so unless they have 200 million of his own money to start with, it is faster with a billion of OPM and make his 200 million from the performance fee.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-15 08:11 | Report Abuse

Not sure how the FM got into thinking the injunction filed by Pop Investments got help by a group of local running stealth dogs. If any, these dogs must be pretty amazing, they read laws that even professional lawyers taken their inputs seriously. The best thing, the judge agreed with them allowing the injunction.

Don't play, play. 😎

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
By allowing the last minute injunction against iCap, the court appears to be aiding and abetting the foreigners, but to protest this will be in contempt, so just blame the foreigners for disrupting their well planned scheme to deprive some shareholders of the rightful votes at the AGM as provided for in the constitution.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-15 12:02 | Report Abuse

In case someone would suggest that a good fund manager should have a selection of better stocks to start with, hence it is not an even odds of good versus bad stocks, bear in mind that for every stock the fund manager bought, another investor has thought it fit to be discarded from his portfolio, and when considering all the stocks available for investing in on the exchange, half of them will outperform the market, and the other half will underperform, the same argument that half the fund managers will outperform and the other half will underperform the average, by definition. Also, if the fund manager is so smart that he can actually select the better ones to start with, then he might just as well concentrate on the few top ones instead of holding so many others or holding cash. In option pricing, at the money strike price, both puts and calls are at or near parity, with delta being 0.50, meaning that the chance for the next share price move being up or down is 50:50, like a coin flip. There is no prior assumption that on average, any stock is going to outperform the rest, the weak form of the EMH that prices already discounted all that is known about the stock. Holding a healthy cash position is more an indication that the manager does not know which way the market is heading than a conviction that a crash is coming, as otherwise, he should be in all cash then. When in doubt, you hedge, with half stocks and half cash, until the future is clearer.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-15 16:07 | Report Abuse

That was what the FM did, assuming in 2014 the FM was unable to read the tea leaves well, stayed with cash 50-60% since then. Different investors will have different choice in responding to this scenario.

Investor A. She got the message, fund manager was either bearish or unclear of the future and started to liquidate the position at 10,000 shares @ 2.30, keep in FD for 10 years @ 3% --> become 30,910, bought back at $2(40% discounts) = 15,955 shares and valued at last price of 2.69 = 42,919. Gains = 87%

Investor B. Hold it long for the past 10 years growing old together, pledge his loyalty with the FM enjoying his wisdom speeches in AGM, scolding the gweilo, dogs, cats and wreckers year after year. Gains = 17% (2.69-2.3)/2.3*100%.

Return difference between investor A & B = 70%

What was your response?

Posted by i3lurker > 2023-11-16 12:43 | Report Abuse

You know thats not true. I suspect he actually reads stealth running dogs tail wags.

FastMoney666

That was what the FM did, assuming in 2014 the FM was unable to read the tea leaves well

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-16 15:08 | Report Abuse

Whatever he read, he made the statement that if the cash portion of the portfolio is excluded, the performance would have been better. This is an example of having your cake and eat it, the same with the dividend policy, having a dividend and discount is better than having a discount but no dividend.

Posted by i3lurker > 2023-11-16 20:41 | Report Abuse

Let me amend for my Portfolio.... 🤣
////statement that if the losses portion of the portfolio is excluded, the performance would have been better.////

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-16 23:57 | Report Abuse

I have amended the returns for EPF in my earlier Excel chart, to adjust for the starting and ending period not being full calendar years. The difference is immaterial, EPF is still higher than iCap share price.

Posted by JunHoHoHoHo > 2023-11-17 11:02 | Report Abuse

How to track down iCap investment portfolio?

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-17 12:12 | Report Abuse

@JunHohohoho - In general you can check in the 2023 Annual Report but after the annual report was issued, we are not sure whether the fund manager sold or buy any stocks. Usually if a fund manager is having extremely low turnover portfolio, you can use his annual report as a guide. You should be able to figure out his quantity and value and substitute with the most recent price if you like to see how close to the reported NAV. In general, when we buy a fund, we will do hands off approach. The logic is the fund manager is better than us, other wise it is pretty dummy of us pay the FM the fees and we do the works.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-17 15:01 | Report Abuse

Just a quick one on iCAP 2022 vs 2023. You may need to refer to Annual Report 2023 page 42.

Investment 2023 RM 328 mln vs 2022 283 mln + 45 mln + 16%

But don't be too happy about it because he reduce cash from 164(2022) to 148 mln(2023) - 16 mln

His rough investment increase was only +29 mln or 10%.....

Because of him sitting on 37% cash in 2022, he could only translate roughly about 6+% to overall NAV.

If someone who will never fully invested, say only 70% in investment and 30% cash, he needs 22% on his 70% investment to achieve 15%. To do 22% invested stocks, he will be a true WB.

Next , please refer to page 54 and 55 on his stars and dogs. Portfolio increase roughly + 89 mln

Major stars
Padini + 58 mln
Sam Engineering + 49 mln
Kelington +24 mln

These 3 contributed to unrealized profits of 131 mln.

His dogs
Parkson -20 mln
APM -8 mln
BioAlpha -8 mln

These 3 unrealized losses of -36 mln

Plus realized losses on Boustaed -17 mln, this give total losses of -53 mln

The rest of stocks in the portfolio + or - , just marginal gains la...

His winning/losing rate is about 60/40%

If the FM is still dreaming of achieving 15% CAGR since its inception, based on his conservative of 70% invested, he needs roughly about 31% CAGR on his invested portfolio for the next 18 years. Based on 60/40 win/loss rate, I wish him all the best.

Posted by Lester Teow > 2023-11-17 16:01 | Report Abuse

when will the dividend policy implement?

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-17 16:04 | Report Abuse

"bu zhi tau" cox FM like buat x tau

Posted by i3lurker > 2023-11-18 09:50 | Report Abuse

Dun be silly.
Once you had given your money to someone else you have no legal right to ask this question.



Lester Teow

when will the dividend policy implement?

17 hours ago

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-19 08:00 | Report Abuse

Dividend? Better to bet on the moustache man Sports Toto lo.....shares fallen to 10 years low from $4+(Year 2013) to $ 1.50 now, whopping 64% drop with 6% dividend yield. Management is very busy doing SBB 😂😂

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2023-11-19 22:59 | Report Abuse

There is something very special and irreplaceable about icapital.biz Berhad. The individual shareowners who understand Tan Teng Boo and icapital biz Berhad well, know and appreciate the fact that both of them are truly unique. They say that there is only one icapitalbiz Berhad and if it is wound up, there is nothing that can replace this precious fund. What is so special about icapital.biz Bhd?

The individual shareowners realised that icapital.biz Berhad and its Designated Person deeply and truly care about the long-term interests of its individual shareowners. It is not just cheap talk from them.

Unlike other companies, right from its very 1st AGM in 2006, icapital.biz Berhad is the only publicly listed company that conducts its AGM on a Saturday, for the convenience of its many individual shareowners and to allow as many of them as possible to attend and vote in the AGM.

Unlike other companies, even though there are no door gifts, the AGM of icapital.biz Berhad is well attended. Many of the shareowners even come from outside the Klang Valley. A long-time shareowner of icapital.biz Berhad flew from Sabah (a two-and-a-half hour flight to Kuala Lumpur) and even brought his two sons and a nephew to attend (including the 2023 Investor Day).

City of London Investment Management, Pop Investment Ltd and their local running dogs have been harassing icapital.biz Berhad and its Designated Person since 2010. How does one deal with such experienced hooligans or "samseng" who possess much larger financial and human resources and are full of deceit? Integrity.
As Tan Teng Boo has explained many times, integrity is the most important of all. Integrity is not the same as honesty. Teng Boo loves to use the example of a crook who honestly tells you he is a crook. He is an honest crook but not one with integrity. There are elements of honesty and trustworthiness in integrity but integrity is much more than that and it is basically about doing the right thing even when no one knows. In managing icapitalbiz Berhad, Teng Boo and his team have always believed in doing the right things for the Fund and its shareowners even when no one knows or acknowledges them. Narrow self-interests are pushed aside. As the CEO of Capital Dynamics explained in his many roadshows, he is the only fund manager who works on Saturdays and Sundays to serve the interests of the shareowners without getting paid extra.


i Capital Newsletter Volume 35 Issue 12

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2023-11-20 19:42 | Report Abuse

He is fairly well paid though isn't he as his business group get two lots of fees so we probably shouldn't feel TOO bad about TTB putting a shift in.

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2023-11-20 19:47 | Report Abuse

Also there is NOTHING special and irreplaceable about icapital.biz Berhad. It is a fund constituted as a company and it exists solely to serve the interests of its investors. ALL of them, not just those that TTB approves of! In more developed markets there are 100s of such funds and so there is no room for sentimentality of the kind expressed by JohnD0ugh. If a fund doesn't continue to serve the needs of its investor base then it no longer need exist. It is a financial ecology and closed end funds where the board does bothing effective to deal with their discount are the lame ducks of that ecology!

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-20 20:36 | Report Abuse

@RealValueInvestor - well said. 👍✌

My condolences though, you have earned a doggy badge and will be treated as public #1 enemy.

I just gave a suggestion to those dividend yield seeker to look into Sports Toto as the market was smart enough to figure out that the moustache man dragged a cash cow into HR Owen, a supercar dealer, that drained the cash. As a result, the dividend payout ratio from the past 80-100% to only about 60%. ROE from 80-100% to 50-60% and now 20%. HR Owen only a 2% margin business......Obviously the market got upset by repricing the risk, price has been adjusted down to the same past yields. The fundamental of the business has changed but yield has not changed....remains at 6%.

Then I get blasted with the long message.....thinking I am talking down iCAP again.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-20 20:40 | Report Abuse

BTW, sorry that I am very lazy to go to other counters. Generally, I will talk all things about "value investing" in this channel. So it is going to be rojak and will contaminate this blog as it will no longer purely on iCap

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-20 20:43 | Report Abuse

Since iCAP representative Patient Investor said I no longer need the minimum 1 share, even with ZERO share, I still can rant here.🙌

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-20 20:48 | Report Abuse

Back to Sports Toto, if we want to see RM 2 again, Sports Toto needs to go back to 80% payout ratio or at least RM 0.13-0.15/share. This is based on logic of M & M theorem that I have just learnt.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-20 21:19 | Report Abuse

@FastMoney, you have not learned from the M&M Theorem, which says the value of the firm is determined by the earnings potential of the firm, not by the dividend yield. So to go back to $2 price level again, bring up the earnings back to the previous level. The dividend will then follow as before.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-20 21:29 | Report Abuse

My apology... Missed out the earnings.. Earnings just improved followed by 80% payout... But of course if earnings can go up a lot more, even at 60% payout, share price will move upwardly.. Paiseh.. Hopefully didn't disgrace your sifu yeah🙏🙏🙏

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-11-20 22:01 | Report Abuse

sports Toto is a cash cow business, there is little or no capex required, as the number forecast business in the country is already saturated, with outlets in every nooks and corners, so the bulk of the earnings will go towards dividend. Valuing it on earnings or yield basis will be equivalent.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-20 22:28 | Report Abuse

The trouble begin when they injected HR Owen UK into Sports Toto, built RM100 million showroom, increased borrowing to stock up super cars by up to 500 mln. So it changed completely on the Sports Toto that we know in the past 30+ years. It was started I think around 1985. In the past it was like 3 billion revenue and now with the supercar car dealer another 3 billion but only earning 2%, this surely will dilute ROE. One way to look at it is building the second earning engine, hence they need to retain more of its earning. The past dividend easily 0.20/share paying out all from the earnings but now 0.09/share on 0.16 on EPS.

Posted by FastMoney666 > 2023-11-20 22:32 | Report Abuse

So dropping earnings, dilutive ROE, increased borrowing, increased working capital, declining dividend got people so upset. Those without any position is not affected buy those bought at higher price suddenly suffered capital loss with lesser dividend 🤕😫