Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-02 21:28 | Report Abuse

@RealValueInvestor We call this selective memory and taken out of context, something we are very familiar with here. The so-called management's efforts to narrow the discount, to this day, they have not given a proper explanation on how the aborted multi-million dual listed fund effort was supposed to work, and why is it in the shreholders' best interest to take COL to court over their continued purchase of shares?

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2022-11-06 15:48 | Report Abuse

The long-term investment success of Warren Buffett is world famous.

What is often neglected in the long-term success of Berkshire Hathaway is the role played by its shareholders or more specifically, by the type and quality of its shareholders.

Let me quote Warren Buffett on this fundamentally important factor in determining the success of a company’s share price performance.

“Over the long term, there has been a more consistent relationship between Berkshire’s market value and business value than has existed for any other publicly-traded equity with which I am familiar.

This is a tribute to you. Because you have been rational, interested, and investment-oriented, the market price for Berkshire stock has almost always been sensible.

This unusual result has been achieved by a shareholder group with unusual demographics: virtually all of our shareholders are individuals, not institutions. No other public company our size can claim the same.

You might think that institutions, with their large staffs of highly-paid and experienced investment professionals, would be a force for stability and reason in financial markets.

They are not: stocks heavily owned and constantly monitored by institutions have often been among the most inappropriately valued.”

The messages from Warren Buffett are very simple and very clear.

He is not keen at all to attract institutional investors for very good reasons and that he and Charlie Munger have a special kinship for the million-plus individual investors of Berkshire Hathaway.

As he explained in 1985 and many times after that, “stocks heavily owned and constantly monitored by institutions have often been among the most inappropriately valued.”

As a long-term value investor myself, I cannot agree with Buffett more.


i Capital.biz Berhad 2022 Annual Report

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2022-11-10 18:49 | Report Abuse

JohnD0ugh's at it again! Claiming Buffet like status whilst COMPLETELY ignoring the FACT that Berkshire Hathaway DOES have a policy of buybacks which they ACT upon when they believe their stock to be cheap. This BTW is a lot more expensive than the SCANDALOUS 39% that ICAP was trading at at the close yesterday......

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-10 22:30 | Report Abuse

@RealValueInvestor That's the difference between WB and the other WB Wannabes.

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2022-11-11 17:59 | Report Abuse

Meanwhile, imagine the case of a closed end fund where the price is 2.00 and the NAV is 3.27. It is therefore trading at almost a 40% discount. It has 140,000,000 shares. Enlightened management, guided by proper corporate governance as they perceive it, therefore decides that the right thing to do is to carry out a buyback of 10% of outstanding shares, or 14,000,000.

Imagine this can be carried out at the prevailing price of 2.00, so it costs 28,000,000 to carry out the buyback.

After the buy-back there are now 126,000,000 shares left in issue (140,000,000-14,000,000).
Total net asset value has fallen from 457,800,000 to 429,800,000, a drop of just over 6%, but remember shares in issue has fallen by 10%.

Everything else remaining the same, what does this do to the NAV? Well, if we divide 429,800,000 by 126,000,000 we get a NAV per share of 3.41 or an increase of in NAV of 4.32%

To put it another way, imagine you’re a genius investor and you can’t find a better portfolio than the one you have already bought. Now imagine you could buy it at almost a 40% discount. Every part of your perfect portfolio but nearly 40% cheaper!

Wouldn’t that make A LOT OF SENSE?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-11 22:49 | Report Abuse

Yes, but the fund manager's AUM is reduced by 6%, and his fees by $420K. That's the problem! At say $50K a year for a junior analyst, that pays for 8 of them.

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2022-11-12 00:19 | Report Abuse

dumbMoney - say it's not so! Who might be motivated by such a thing?

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2022-11-12 00:44 | Report Abuse

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/05/berkshire-hathaway-q3-earnings-brk.html

Headline:
"The conglomerate spent $1.05 billion in share repurchases, bringing the nine-month total to $5.25 billion."

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2022-11-13 15:37 | Report Abuse

That the type and quality of shareholders matter to the share price performance of Scottish Mortgage (SMT) or Pershing Square Holdings (PSH) or Berkshire Hathaway or icapital.biz Berhad frankly comes as no surprise to me.

icapital.biz Berhad’s own experience has the same message to deliver. I have been saying the same thing and doing the same thing ever since your Fund was promoted and listed in 2005.

During the 2005 initial public offering (IPO) of icapital.biz Berhad, Capital Dynamics intentionally took charge of its fund raising. This was done for two simple reasons.

First, Capital Dynamics did not charge icapital.biz Berhad any placement fees and related expenses of about RM2.000 million even though it was entitled to then in order to boost the NAV of your Fund even before it was listed.

Secondly, in conducting your Fund’s IPO roadshows, I intentionally targeted only individual investors and for the same reasons as Warren Buffett, I intentionally stayed away from promoting icapital.biz Berhad to institutional investors (events years later have proven my fears correct).

As Buffett said and as what I have been doing since your Fund’s IPO in 2005, “Our goal is to attract longterm owners who, at the time of purchase, have no timetable or price target for sale but plan instead to stay with us
indefinitely.”

The result of your Fund’s IPO was as I had expected – on its very first day of listing on 19th October 2005, the share price of icapital.biz Berhad closed at an outstanding 1% premium to its NAV.

The share price of icapital.biz Berhad then went on to trade at a persistent premium to its NAV until October 2008. Unfortunately, the ownership experience of icapital.biz Berhad has turned out to be different from that SMT.

While the latter saw a substantial decline in institutional ownership over the years and its discount disappearing, icapital.biz Berhad was cursed with a substantial increase in institutional ownership and a persistent discount problem.

In 2006 and 2007, only 3.000 million shares or 2.14% of your Fund’s shares were held by an institution, which sold all its shares in late 2008.

Regretably the institutional ownership of icapital.biz Berhad has now surged to 32.39 million shares or 23.13% and in the process, its NAV discount has widened and persisted.

Taking into account the experience of SMT, PSH and Berkshire Hathaway and the wisdom of Warren Buffett, it is obvious what the solution to your Fund’s nagging discount problem is – increase the ownership of individual investors.

How can this be done ?


i Capital.biz Berhad 2022 Annual Report

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-13 22:20 | Report Abuse

So the price discount is attributed to the purchases by institutional investors. But who has been selling to them in the first place, other than individual investors? If the sellers are other institutional investors, there would have been no net change in their percentage share ownership. Better to blame the discount to disillusioned individual shareholders who sold out to the foreigners. If they didn't sell at a discount, the foreigners would have been forced to buy at higher prices. It is all supply and demand. There being more sellers than buyers. Also, COL has been owning the shares for more than 10 years now and still wants to buy, is that still considered short term?

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2022-11-14 22:02 | Report Abuse

JohnD0ugh may I refer you to Jeremiah {5:21}? "Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not." It might help with your condition.....

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-16 15:26 | Report Abuse

Since the company itself does not have any admin staff other than the investment manager, one can only then assume it is the latter that is now canvassing for proxies for the AGM. Is it in its job functions to influence the voting for directors? The latter are supposed to be looking after the interests of the shareholders and theoretically oversee the manager, if they are truly independent. But if their positions depend on support of the manager, how to effectively carry out the corporate governance functions?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-17 00:35 | Report Abuse

Minority Shareholders Watchdog Group should look into the position of directors elected on the basis of active canvassing by the fund manager whether they can still be considered as independent in terms of good corporate governance.

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2022-11-20 13:28 | Report Abuse

This brings me to our Investor Day. Unlike the London or New York stock market, where closed-end funds or investment trusts are common, in Malaysia, we need to educate investors on the many benefits of investing in icapital.biz Berhad, the only listed closed-end fund in Malaysia.

The Board and Fund Manager have been considering implementing an effective, systematic and sustained investor relations strategy for your Fund with the eventual aim of increasing the ownership of individual investors or share owners as we prefer to call them in icapital.biz Berhad.

Conducting the highly popular Investor Day was one of the activities held to achieve this objective of increased individual ownership.

However, your Fund’s institutional investor in September 2015 rejected this solution outright, arrogantly saying that it is not a discount control mechanism.

The experiences of Scottish Mortgage (SMT), Pershing Square Holdings (PSH), Berkshire Hathaway and your Fund have proven this rejection very foolhardy or perhaps the institutional investor wanted fewer individual investors to compete with them in buying the shares of icapital.biz Berhad.

With hindsight, our recommended strategy is the right step to take in future. For a start, the Investor Day of icapital.biz Berhad will be back, starting with the 2022 event.

Buffett correctly counselled : We feel that high quality ownership can be attracted and maintained if we consistently communicate our business and ownership philosophy - along with no other conflicting messages.


i Capital.biz Berhad 2022 Annual Report

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2022-11-20 13:28 | Report Abuse

As we were working hard to educate the existing and potential individual investors about the benefits of owning icapital.biz Berhad and its time-proven value investing philosophy, your Fund’s institutional investors were undermining our well-thought out efforts by sending out wrong or “conflicting messages” about your Fund.

An example was the 2012 messy AGM, which prevented us from conducting our Investor Day for that year. Another instance was the public posting in August 2015 of numerous false allegations about icapital.biz Berhad and its fund manager by your Fund’s institutional investor.

Coincidence or otherwise, this led to the publication of a defamatory article by a senior editor of a local financial publication just a few days before the 2015 AGM of icapital.biz Berhad.

The consequences of these conflicting messages were to seriously damage the reputation of your Fund and grievously undermined the tireless efforts of the Board and Fund Manager to increase the individual ownership and deal with the discount problem.

Let me quote Buffett again : “The market price for Berkshire stock has almost always been sensible. This unusual result has been achieved by a shareholder group with unusual demographics: virtually all of our shareholders are individuals, not institutions.”

The annual general meetings of icapital.biz Berhad used to be a very joyous and productive engagement for all. My hope is that the 2022 AGM and those after that will be like them again.

The journey to achieving fewer or even zero institutional investors for your Fund will not be easy. We have to also undo the damages inflicted on your Fund by the institutional investors.

To achieve this important objective and permit the share price of icapital.biz Berhad to trade at a rational level, I will need the support of like-minded individual share owners and here is my sincere appeal.

Whether it is to share with other individuals about the benefits of owning icapital.biz Berhad or speaking up in its AGM or participating in its Investor Day, I will need all your support.

Every step helps.


i Capital.biz Berhad 2022 Annual Report

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-21 02:13 | Report Abuse

Read the shareholders structure of Berkshire Hathaway B shares, the more liquid and affordable version, here - https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=BRKB&subView=institutional Look at the % of individual shareholders.

Posted by nhy6 > 2022-11-21 18:30 | Report Abuse

In 2012, Evelyn Ho Lai Meng proposed the appointments of Andrew Pegge (Laxey Partners, a shareholder activist), Lo Kok Kee, and Low Nyap Heng to ICAP board.

This is how Evelyn Ho and Lo Lok Kee look like, check out their photos here :
https://mbsloop.wordpress.com/2007/12/08/1st-anniversary/

In 2011, Lo Kok Kee and Andrew Pegge of Laxey Partners tried to take down wee cho yaw’s United International Securities in Singapore. Laxey also nominated Lo Kok Kee as a director.

Lo Kok Kee and Laxey Partners were involved in the liquidation of Amanah Millenia Fund and Amanah Harta Tanah PNB 2, both listed on Bursa.

Lo Kok Kee published a book called “Dumb money investing”.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-21 22:31 | Report Abuse

@nhy6 https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2012/11/09/not-a-hostile-takeover/
For the record, United International Securities was the last of the Big 4 Singapore bank managed closed end funds to went for members liquidation because of the persistent price discount. So these are the results of shareholders activism where every one managed to exit their investments at fair market value and not at a discount.

Posted by dumberthandumb > 2022-11-22 16:35 | Report Abuse

Lo kok kee, long time kawan of city of london and andrew pegge/laxey, was sued by ogier, an international law firm for breach of contract in 2017. LKK failed to pay legal fees amounting to US$117,613.36. Lol. Dumb.

Posted by nhy6 > 2022-11-23 10:25 | Report Abuse

In 2008, Laxey was fined by Swiss regulator for failing to disclose its 22.9% interest in a Swiss PLC. Swiss law requires any institution holding more than 3% of a PLC to disclose that within a certain time frame.

Lo kok kee sued by law firm. Haha, pattern sama je with laxey.

Is lo kok kee even a shareholder of icap? Why talk so much. Maybe buy together with his 2 london rakan kongsi?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-23 18:34 | Report Abuse

At end Nov 2012, almost 10 years ago, iCap share price closed at $2.33. Today, 10 years later, it is $2.00. Add back the 9 and 20 sen dividends, it is $2.29. So long term shareholders who held their shares had gone through a 'lost decade' with nothing to show for it. The coming AGM will be a good indication how solid this 'fixed deposit' base is? Did someone just pressed the panic button?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-23 19:43 | Report Abuse

During the last decade, the average month end NAV of iCap is $3.16, which at 1.5% p.a. management fee, would average 4.74 sen per year or 47.4 sen for the period. All this without owning a single share, whereas shareholders get zero. If shareholders have followed the real WB's advice and bought the dumb index fund instead, at least they would have receive an average annual dividend yield of 3%, or 30% over 10 years before compounding, disregarding price movements. So even if the index were to drop by 30% over this period, they would still end up about the same as holding the shares.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-11-25 12:30 | Report Abuse

In 2012, TTB told the press that he had been working on a world first dual listed fund, which had cost $1.5 million so far and not a single sen had been charged to the fund. Imagine the shareholders' surprise when in the 2020 accounts, a total of $6.7 million were charged as expenses to the fund, with just a footnote to explain that it was reimbursement of the dual listed fund expenses. What changed his mind to bill the fund instead, and what did the fund get out of this aborted exercise? Instead of supposedly narrowing the price discount, it got worse. Coincidently, the then chairman of the Board resigned before the AGM, citing differences in opinion. What differences? https://www.pressreader.com/malaysia/the-star-malaysia/20121107/282557310471653

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2022-11-28 01:35 | Report Abuse

Scottish Mortgage (SMT) is more than 113 years old and still growing. Your Fund’s age is a spring chicken in comparison. Stan Truhlsen, an Omaha ophthalmologist turned 100 on 13 November 2020.

In 1959, Stan, along with 10 other young Omaha doctors, formed a partnership with Warren Buffett, called Emdee, Ltd. When this partnership distributed its Berkshire Hathaway shares in 1969, all of the doctors kept the stock they received.

Two of Stan’s comrades from Emdee are now in their high-90s and continue to hold their Berkshire shares. Value investing succeeds because it goes hand in hand with a focus on the long-term.

Value investing demands patience and the ability to be a long-term investor. Longterm is defined not just in terms of years but in decades.

Can icapital.biz Berhad enjoy an outcome similar to SMT or Berkshire Hathaway where its share price trades at a rational level ?

The case for this is strong indeed and it used to be like that when individual shareowners own nearly 98% of your Fund.

i Capital.biz Berhad 2022 Annual Report

Posted by observatory > 2022-11-29 13:21 | Report Abuse

ICAP has just completed its 2022 AGM. Below is the trend on the votes on director's reappointment:

Year For Against
2022 43,756,291 33,170,514
2021 43,623,877 31,099,317
2020 42,332,043 30,267,507
2019 43,829,446 27,963,500
2018 46,261,889 28,389,753
2017 44,554,250 24,832,500
2016 57,089,178 23,646,300
2015 60,198,263 20,281,250

The support for company directors’ reappointment has declined from about 60 million shares in 2015 but has since stabilized at about 44 million shares. The Against vote has increased to 33 million shares in 2022.

As CoL has stopped further share purchase pending ICAP's appeal against High Court's ruling, the Against votes is unlikely climb much further, not until CoL resumes purchase assuming a favorable court outcome.

Posted by observatory > 2022-11-29 13:21 | Report Abuse

As CoL has stopped buying, the NAV discount has widened. This is contrary to TTB’s prediction and is common sense.

The evidence can be seen from the Bursa announcements. The last purchase by CoL was on 7 Apr 2022. The NAV on 6 Apr was RM3.36, share closing price RM2.15, implying a 36% discount.
https://www.bursamalaysia.com/market_information/announcements/company_announcement/announcement_details?ann_id=3249780
https://www.bursamalaysia.com/market_information/announcements/company_announcement/announcement_details?ann_id=3249196

The latest NAV on 23 Nov 2022 was lower at RM3.28. The closing share price was even lower at RM2.00. The NAV discount has widened to 39%.
https://www.bursamalaysia.com/market_information/announcements/company_announcement/announcement_details?ann_id=3309148

The small-scale purchase by TTB is rather useless in stopping the discount from further widening.

With no other investors pressing for change, there will be lack of pressure for management to change for the benefit of unit holders. ICAP remains a value trap.

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2022-12-04 13:17 | Report Abuse

We compare the NAV and share price performance of icapital.biz Berhad in its 2022 financial year; that is, from 1 June 2021 to 31 May 2022 with that of the performance of Scottish Mortgage (SMT) over the same period.

On both counts, the performance of icapital.biz Berhad was way ahead of SMT. There are good reasons that the NAV discount of your Fund will eventually reverse.

The NAV and share price performance of your Fund is substantially better than that of SMT, itself a well-managed investment trust.

And yet, icapital.biz Berhad still has around RM155 million in cash or RM1.11 per share as at 15 September 2022, down from RM1.49 as at 31 May 2021, waiting to be put it to good use.

If the NAV discount of SMT can swing to parity or a premium, with a sound long-term investor education strategy, an appropriate ownership structure and continued superior investment performance, the same can eventually happen to icapital.biz Berhad.

With icapital.biz Berhad, share owners get a well-managed fund, founded on integrity, and offers excellent long-term prospects.

With an attractive compound rate of return, the best gains for icapital.biz Berhad are still ahead of us. It does not make sense to chop down a bountiful fruit tree before it has matured.

i Capital.biz Berhad 2022 Annual Report

Posted by tantengbear > 2022-12-07 11:43 | Report Abuse

Who still owns shares of a fund that exists to feed the CEO management fees? The management fees are probably used to pay for the CEO's groceries and deputy CEO's cosmetics.

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2022-12-11 10:04 | Report Abuse

To briefly recapitulate, the period from May 2014 to August 2022 was filled with the following major events: crude oil price plunging in 2015, a dangerous escalation in United States’ anti-China campaign since president Trump, the Covid-19 pandemic and a sharp recession breaking out, soaring inflation especially in the developed countries, aggressive monetary tightening especially by the US Federal Reserve, a strong US$, the Ukrainian Crisis, the plunging S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite and Malaysia’s protracted political instability.

While the MSCI Malaysia index plunged 30.28%, your Fund’s NAV jumped 9.61%. Disappointingly, despite this strong performance in a most challenging period, your Fund’s market price fell by 15.19% (the returns of your Fund’s NAV and market price assumed the dividends paid in September 2013 and December 2021 were reinvested).

As some share owners have suggested, such an irrational behaviour needs to be probed further.

The performance of your Fund’s market price ultimately depends on the quality and behavior of its existing and potential investors, especially for a listed collective investment scheme like icapital.biz Berhad. Your Fund has nearly 3,300 share owners with a large majority of them owning less than 100,000 shares.

Given such a widely distributed ownership structure and the fact that your Fund does not have a controlling shareholder, a substantial shareholder of your Fund has a disproportionately large and unhealthy impact on your Fund’s market price.

A negative impact would see a large majority of shareowners suffering persistent price and NAV distortions.


i Capital.biz Berhad 2022 Annual Report

Posted by tantengbear > 2022-12-12 15:31 | Report Abuse

"The performance of your Fund’s market price ultimately depends on the quality and behavior of its existing and potential investors"
Yes, please keep blaming shareowners

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-12-17 00:33 | Report Abuse

This novel thesis that "The performance of your Fund’s market price ultimately depends on the quality and behavior of its existing and potential investors" is worthy of a Nobel Prize in economics. Business schools will have to teach shareholders profiling as an investment course. Too bad I was on a full tuition scholarship, otherwise I may have to ask for a refund of tuition as I have been taught all the wrong stuff. Also no need to study for the CFA or MBA, just apply to join CD and learn from the guru himself.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-12-17 01:01 | Report Abuse

Another claim that has been made is that cash is a free call option. I was taught option pricing by one of the co-authors of the Nobel Prize winning Black-Scholes Options Pricing formula and one of the factors influencing prices is the Greek rho, for interest rates. If options can be free, then interest rates and tenures would not matter at all in the pricing, and a one month option should then cost the same as a 1 year option. Cash is cash, option is option, don't try to confuse the shareholders.

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-17 22:51 | Report Abuse

An issue that will have to be decided by the partners or business owners of icap closed end fund in 2025 is whether to continue or to liquidate the fund.

As this date approaches, we will definitely see two differing voices on this issue.

icap closed end fund started in 2005. After 20 years of existence, how many of the initial investors are still holding their stocks? I am among one of these investors at its initiation. In fact, I added more subsequently and am enjoying gains overall.

Those asking for liquidation will definitely be very strong too, as the motivation to cash out at the NAV (thus closing the discount gap) will be a huge incentive for many of them.

Posted by Sslee > 2022-12-18 06:58 | Report Abuse

icap closed end fund started in 2005. After 20 years of existence, how many of the initial investors are still holding their stocks? I am among one of these investors at its initiation. In fact, I added more subsequently and am enjoying gains overall

Mind telling us what is your gain overall (2005- end 2022)?

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2022-12-18 11:20 | Report Abuse

In the last 3 years, investors have seen a lot of booms and busts.

Many of them are now stuck with the once-upon-a-time hot favourite glove stocks and have unhappily been forced to be truly long-term investors as these stocks have plummeted.

Many investors are also already stuck with the parabolic semiconductor/technology stocks, even though most of them have still got a long way to go before finally bottoming out.

Then, there are those who have seen their hard-earned savings or wealth disappear into thin air in the gigantic cryptocurrency collapse. Also, not forgetting the long list of naïve victims who were so easily scammed.

Sadly, what these investors do not realise or have overlooked is that there is a solid stock on the KLSE that investors could have bought and easily sailed through the last 3 difficult years without having to suffer all this pain, and be able to sleep soundly every night and still make a decent return.

I am always advising investors to buy the shares of icapital.biz Bhd (ICAP). Whenever I advise investors to invest in ICAP, some are easily convinced and would quite quickly go ahead and invest, but for others, I would get a few typical unenthusiastic responses.

They would say that ICAP is illiquid and that it is hard to buy its shares. Or they would complain that the stock is boring and its share price hardly moves. Then, there is the parrot-like narrative that ICAP's share price sells at a discount to its NAV.

Starting with this week's issue of i Capital, I will share with our subscribers some unnoticed reasons why ICAP has succeeded far more than what investors have realized or expected.

i Capital Newsletter Volume 34 Issue 16

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-18 15:34 | Report Abuse

Market price of iCap today is 1.99 per share
NAV of iCap today is 3.33 per share

Two dividends were declared over the lifetime of this fund to-date: namely 9.5 sen (2013) and 30 sen (2021), totalling 39.5 sen.


Based on market price, icap has returned 2.385 (=1.99 + 0.395). The CAGR for my nieve though positive, was not great; perhaps equalled FD rates, maybe even lower than FD rates.

Based on NAV price, icap has returned 3.725 (3.33 + 0.395), My niece would have a reasonable CAGR of about 2x FD rates. Not fantastic either, but she is not going to be "rich".

My returns will be better than my niece but still short of my initial hope and expectations. It is probably half of my initial expectations of 15% per year. That was the figure many initial investors had benchmark for this icap closed end fund. At 15% per year, the fund should have doubled every 5 years, namely, $1.00 initial NAV to $2 (5th year), then to $4 (10th year) and $8.00 (15th year).

The biggest winner to-date is of course the manager who managed this fund; as is also usually the case in many managed funds. Managers of fund should focus on only one parameter in fund management, that is, singularly focussing on growing the ABSOLUTE RETURN over time of its portfolio without taking excessive risks or even better at low risks.

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-18 15:56 | Report Abuse

An INVESTMENT OPERATION is one which, upon THOROUGH ANALYSIS, promises SAFETY OF PRINCIPAL and a SATISFACTORY RETURN. Operations NOT meeting these requirements are speculative.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-12-18 17:25 | Report Abuse

@Integrity, do you agree that as a general rule in investing, risks and returns are inversely related, the basis of the Capital Asset Pricing Model? So if you want low risks and high returns at the same time, how many can achieve that? If you hold a significant of the portfolio in cash, which barely covers management fee, the rest of the portfolio will need to outperform the market in order to achieve an overall market beating performance. This is the odds iCap is facing. If you fight with one hand tied behind your back, your other hand needs to be twice as good as your opponent just to make up for the handicap.

Posted by Sslee > 2022-12-18 17:29 | Report Abuse

If 3iii had used his money on icap to invest on his favorite Nestle or PBB in 2005. What will be his return by now?

So don't waste your money and time on icap. Icap only enrich you know who and not the shareholders.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-12-18 17:54 | Report Abuse

@Sslee, the standard reply to such questions by management is to just compare market price returns of other shares/index against NAV returns of iCap, while ignoring the dividends declared by the former. Is that fair?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-12-18 18:24 | Report Abuse

For iCap's NAV computations, they did add back the dividends declared, so why not for the benchmark too?

Posted by Sslee > 2022-12-18 18:29 | Report Abuse

Table 1: Market Value of Holdings as at 31 May 2022.
Company (RM ‘000)
SAM Engineering & Equipment 75,341
Padini Holdings 57,143
Kelington Group 33,492
Capital A (formerly known as AirAsia Group) 19,033
Kronologi Asia 14,934
Suria Capital 13,916
Boustead Holdings 9,111
APM Automotive Holdings 9,083
Bioalpha Holdings 7,113
Apex Healthcare 6,802
Capital A - RCUIDS shares 6,784
Tong Herr Resources 5,759
Kelington Group - Warrants 4,352
MKH 3,837
Parkson Holdings 3,441
Luxchem Corporation 3,204
United Plantations 2,416
Wellcall Holdings 1,892
OCK Group 1,347
Oceancash Pacific 1,038
Capital A - Warrants 927
HPMT Holdings 874
Bioalpha Holdings - ICPS 575
Salutica 570
Eupe Corporation 80

Table 2: Size of Holdings as at 31 May 2022
Company (‘000 shares)
Bioalpha Holdings 49,058
Kronologi Asia 31,112
Capital A (formerly known as AirAsia Group) 29,282
Kelington Group 28,383
Parkson Holdings 22,942
SAM Engineering & Equipment 18,154
Padini Holdings 17,007
Boustead Holdings 12,148
Suria Capital 11,894
Capital A - RCUIDS shares 9,761
Kelington Group - Warrants 9,461
Bioalpha Holdings - ICPS 7,665
Luxchem Corporation 5,007
Capital A - Warrants 4,880
APM Automotive Holdings 4,541
OCK Group 3,410
Oceancash Pacific 3,145
MKH 2,951
Apex Healthcare 2,283
Tong Herr Resources 1,888
HPMT Holdings 1,803
Salutica 1,700
Wellcall Holdings 1,514
United Plantations 165
Eupe Corporation 100

Table 3: Purchases made since 01 June 2021
Company (‘000 shares)
Parkson Holdings 6,000
Luxchem Corporation 5,007
OCK Group 3,410
Capital A (formerly known as AirAsia Group) 3,000
Wellcall Holdings 980
Apex Healthcare 571
United Plantations 165
Eupe Corporation 100

Looking at the stocks holding of icap, I think 3iii stocks selection can easily beat icap hands down.

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-18 19:10 | Report Abuse

>>>>
Posted by Sslee > 1 hour ago | Report Abuse

If 3iii had used his money on icap to invest on his favorite Nestle or PBB in 2005. What will be his return by now?

So don't waste your money and time on icap. Icap only enrich you know who and not the shareholders.
>>>

I added Nestle in 2005 or thereabout, and it was priced about $22.00 per share or so then. :-)

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-18 19:12 | Report Abuse

Don't overdiversify. Stay concentrated. Bang on your best prospects.
Overdiversification drive your returns towards the market returns.

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-18 19:13 | Report Abuse

For every 5 stocks you own, expect one to underperform (perhaps, you should sell), three to do as you projected and one to overperform (the one that makes you very rich. The gains from the overperformer exceeds the losses from by many folds.

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-18 20:03 | Report Abuse

http://fusioninvestor.blogspot.com/2008/07/blog-capsule-bullbear-vs-moolah-on.html

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-18 20:10 | Report Abuse

I have owned PBB for a long time and have had added this stock on regular intervals. In 2008, during the global financial crisis, PBB which was around RM14 - RM16 per share, dropped to about RM 7 or 8 per share.

How did you handle your portfolio of stocks during this crisis? By the time, the challenge from Moolah came, I think the price of PBB was around RM 12, having dropped from $ high of RM 16. Did you sell and then plan to buy back later, at even lower prices?

Anyway, this time capsule proved one simple point. For selected stocks, you may not even have to sell. Given the long time horizon of holding this fantastic company, the continuing holding onto this stock and adding at opportunistic times remain a good strategy. The returns can be volatile for any stock in the short term, but in the long term, these drops remain blips in the long term price chart that continues to uptrend for a long term.

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-18 20:12 | Report Abuse

Buy and hold is safe for selected stocks. Today, the price of PBB is even higher. Add in the dividends, the returns have been good.

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2022-12-18 20:50 | Report Abuse

It is far better for Tan Teng Boo and the Board of iCAP to concentrate on investment performance than to worry too much over how to shrink the discount to the NAV of the fund which they have some or little control over.

http : // my investingnotes. blogspot.com/2012/11/i-throw-my-support-for-tan-teng-boo-to.html
I wrote this in 2012, at that time the CAGR of icap was 18%.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2022-12-19 03:09 | Report Abuse

Most fund managers will put in the standard disclaimer that past performance is no indication nor guarantee for future results. Sure, if you can project 18% CAGR into the future, the sky is the limit.