Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-05 12:07 | Report Abuse

When people look at the numbers this way, how many will want to take cash? So the critics here will have a tough decision to make, haha.

Posted by CharlesT > 2023-03-05 12:19 | Report Abuse

If i were u guys i will look into the top 30 shareholders in Annual Report.

See who they are n see whether u can get in touch with them thru social media n then sell whatever yr ideas to them (special div etc).

Who knows....

Spending yr time 24 hours a day 7 days a week for the past 10 years here seems hv little impact or no impact at all.....

Posted by CharlesT > 2023-03-05 12:21 | Report Abuse

However, if yr purpose here is to diu TTB or kaki kong kaki song then just ignore my suggestion n just carry on.....

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2023-03-05 12:21 | Report Abuse

1. c) Berkshire Hathaway (BH).

Warren Buffett's long-term investment success through BH is well-known around the world. What is often overlooked in the long-term success of Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway is the role played by its shareholders. Let me quote Warren Buffett on this fundamentally important factor in determining the success of a company's share price performance.

The quotes below are from his famous annual Letters to Shareholders, with the year indicated.

1983 Letter to shareholders
The key to a rational stock price is rational shareholders, both current and prospective.
In large part, however, 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.
Through our policies and communications – our "advertisements" - we try to attract investors who will understand our operations, attitudes and expectations. (And, fully as important, we try to dissuade those who won't.) We want those who think of themselves as business owners and invest in companies with the intention of staying a long time. And, we want those who keep their eyes focused on business results, not market prices.
People who buy for non-value reasons are likely to sell for non-value reasons. Their presence in the picture will accentuate erratic price swings unrelated to underlying business developments.
We will try to avoid policies that attract buyers with a short-term focus on our stock price and try to follow policies that attract informed long-term investors focusing on business values

1985 Letter to shareholders
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.
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.

1988 Letter to shareholders
Our goal is to attract long-term owners who, at the time of purchase, have no timetable or price target for sale but plan instead to stay with us indefinitely. Of course, some Berkshire owners will need or want to sell from time to time, and we wish for good replacements who will pay them a fair price. Therefore, we try, through our policies, performance, and communications, to attract new shareholders who understand our operations, share our time horizons, and measure us as we measure ourselves. If we can continue to attract this sort of shareholder - and, just as important, can continue to be uninteresting to those with short-term or unrealistic expectations - Berkshire shares should consistently sell at prices reasonably related to business value.

2020 Letter to shareholders
Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett feel a special kinship with "the million-plus individual investors who simply trust us to represent their interests, whatever the future may bring. They have joined us with no intent to leave, adopting a mindset similar to that held by our original partners. Indeed, many investors from our partnership years, and/or their descendants, remain substantial owners of Berkshire".


i Capital Newsletter Volume 34 Issue 18 (www.icapital.biz)

Posted by Sslee > 2023-03-05 13:47 | Report Abuse

If only icap can perform like Berkshire Hathaway then only you will have loyal shareholders.

But the problems is Icap can't perform and all his so called valued long term stocks holding in the portfolio is/are:
Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2 days ago | Report Abuse

Size of Holdings as at 31 May 2022
Company (‘000 shares)
Bioalpha Holdings 49,058
Interesting to see Bioalpha is in iCap portfolio.
Gruesome company by my definition.

Posted by i3lurker > 2023-03-05 13:49 | Report Abuse

the Buffalo has no morals
and will buy all counters that make money including but not limited to OnG

Posted by speakup > 2023-03-05 15:11 | Report Abuse

TTB was once regarded as the Warren Buffett of Asia. Now that title goes to Pheim founder

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-06 17:42 | Report Abuse

https://www.pheimunittrusts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Letter-to-Unitholder1-1.pdf
This involved the alleged manipulation of year end closing share price of an investee company in order to boost the value of the portfolio, on which the management fee is based on.

Posted by speakup > 2023-03-06 21:31 | Report Abuse

wah korek korek out 2012 news. alamak!

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-06 22:31 | Report Abuse

I was in the market then, and he was my contemporary, a rather small community.

Posted by Just88 > 2023-03-07 22:40 |

Post removed.Why?

Posted by Just88 > 2023-03-07 22:40 |

Post removed.Why?

Posted by Just88 > 2023-03-07 22:41 |

Post removed.Why?

Posted by Just88 > 2023-03-07 22:42 |

Post removed.Why?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-07 23:11 | Report Abuse

Financial theory says share buybacks and dividends are just either sides of the same coin, as both are returning cash to shareholders, the deciding factor being who can do better with the cash, the company or the shareholder? In WB's case, he don't want to pay dividends, but do share buy backs because he is confident that he can beat the average shareholder in the investment game. Any shareholder who needs the cash can sell the equivalent amount of shares in the market, because ex-dividend, the share price would adjust downwards by the same value as the amount of shares sold instead, so no difference either way.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-07 23:16 | Report Abuse

This is basic corporate finance taught in business schools, the Nobel Prize winning M&M Theory of corporate finance and dividend. This is what WB is applying as prime example.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-07 23:25 | Report Abuse

Top Glove, the example often cited here against share buy back, was under the delusion that its profitability is sustainable into the future, so the shares were 'cheap'. Nothing to do with the merits or demerits of share buy backs per se.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-07 23:30 | Report Abuse

Very basic mistake, if the shares are trading at more than 10x book value, investing just 1 tenth of it, the limit of sharebacks allowed, i.e. at book value, would have doubled the capacity of the firm in the long run, instead of just buying back 1 tenth of its earning capacity for the same amount.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-07 23:36 | Report Abuse

If market cap is 10 billion and book value is just 1 billion, buying back 10% shares would cost $1 billion, doubling capacity also around $1 billion, but takes a while to build, which is the better option? Unless the objective is to become the most valuable stock on Bursa, overtaking Maybank?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-08 00:47 | Report Abuse

I have posed this question before, if the company declares a $1 dividend with an option to reinvest that $1 into shares at market price, which would you choose? If the latter, this is equivalent to the company buying back its own shares, which is what you would be doing, by reinvesting.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-08 01:03 | Report Abuse

To explain the M&M Theory in simple terms so everyone can understand, if you own a hundred shares trading at $1, and you receive a 10 sen dividend, ex dividend, you would have received $10 in dividend, and your shares are now trading at $0.90 ex dividend, so worth $90 now, for an unchanged total value of $100. Alternatively, without the dividend, you can sell 10 shares at $1 each and receive $10 cash, and still have 90 shares at $1 each, exactly the same result as getting a dividend. Such simple logic.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-08 01:29 | Report Abuse

So whether paying dividends or doing share buy backs, there is no one-size fits all answer, all depends on the actual situations of the companies and the markets.

Posted by i3gambler > 2023-03-08 10:22 | Report Abuse

........if the company declares a $1 dividend with an option to reinvest that $1 into shares at market price, which would you choose? If the latter, this is equivalent to the company buying back its own shares, which is what you would be doing, by reinvesting.........

dumbMoney,
I refer to your above statement, I assume you are talking about DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Plan)
My opinion:
1) If all shareholders choose to receive Cash and refuse to reinvest / exercise DRIP, that is Cash Dividend, a certain amount of Cash flow out from the company.
2) If all shareholders choose to exercise DRIP, then it is just a mini scale of bonus issue, there is no Cash flow out from the company.

Posted by i3gambler > 2023-03-08 11:18 | Report Abuse

Fund managers in general is not keen to pay dividend or share buy back.
Because in both cases, there would be a certain amount of money flowing out from the funds.
The fund NAV would reduce and of course management fees would also reduce.

ICAP has so far paid dividend for 2 times:
1) To avoid tax credits burnt.
2) To help out shareholders affected by Covid.

If we want to receive good dividend, better invest in other companies which the management remunerations would not be affected by dividend payout.

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2023-03-08 11:26 | Report Abuse

I invest for a very long term. However, not many invest for this long term time horizon. Many investors in icap may have planned to cash out at 10 years, or 15 years or the unplanned 20 years of their investment in this stock. They may wish to cash out for various reasons (downpayment for a house, children or grandchildren higher education, retirement income expenses, etc.)

As icap closed end fund is trading at such a huge discount, those who need to cash out at this time are most unfortunate indeed.

As an example, I encouraged my young niece to invest in iCap. She bought at 1.60 per share. After more than a decade, the arket price of iCap is 1.97. Her investent objective was not realised. She needs to cash out now as she is a young mother and wish to put a downpayment for her first house. To solve her problem, I bought over her shares at NAV, playing the kind uncle role.

How can existing investors realise the fair value of iCap today? Perhaps, it will be a long, long while yet.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-08 12:51 | Report Abuse

@i3gambler, a dividend reinvestment plan is like a politician standing for re-election. If the voter don't want him to stay, vote him out, those who want him to stay on, vote for him. A confident fund manager would let the investors choose, as a vote of confidence and show of loyalty, one not too sure would not want to take the risk at all.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-09 00:15 | Report Abuse

@Integrity how many shareholders can be lucky enough to have generous uncles like you? How many can afford to bail out and leave around $1.40 on the table through no fault of their own, but blame it on other shareholders who continue to sell at such deep discounts? The latter are the root cause. There is no short selling allowed on this stock, so all the sellers are genuine, not trying to depress the share price to make money.

Posted by jackjason > 2023-03-09 00:29 | Report Abuse

whatever kind of fund also not ineterest for me. Fund manager just continue earn the good management fees no matter investment in lose position

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2023-03-12 12:58 | Report Abuse

1. d) icapital.biz Berhad (ICAP).

My 4th case study of why the type and quality of share owners or shareholders matter to the share price of a listed company involves our very own ICAP.

It should come as no surprise that the type and quality of shareholders matter to share price performance. I have been saying and doing the same thing ever since ICAP was promoted and listed in Oct 2005.

During the 2005 IPO of ICAP, Capital Dynamics intentionally took charge of its fundraising and roadshows instead of passing them to Kenanga, the investment banker at that time. This was done for two simple reasons.

First, Capital Dynamics did not charge ICAP any placement fees and related expenses of about RM2.000 mln, even though it was entitled to then, in order to boost the NAV of ICAP even before it was listed. Had Kenanga done the fundraising and roadshows, it would have charged ICAP a hefty amount.

Secondly, in conducting ICAP's IPO roadshows, I intentionally targeted only individual investors, and for the same reasons as Warren Buffett, I intentionally stayed away from institutional investors events years later have proven my fears correct). Why?
Based on my own experience, my views of institutional investors are exactly the same as Warren Buffett's: "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."

As Buffett said and as I have been doing since ICAP's IPO in 2005, "Our goal is to attract long-term owners who, at the time of purchase, have no timetable or price target for sale but plan instead to stay with us indefinitely."

Take a look at the share price performance of Malayan Banking (Maybank). From 2017 to 2022, Maybank's share price has performed very disappointingly. It is the top bank in Malaysia and is consistently and highly profitable. At the same time, Maybank offers consistently attractive dividend yields.

Despite all these attractions, Maybank's share price performance has been quite poor. Why ?

As Warren Buffett wisely advised, "stocks heavily owned and constantly monitored by institutions have often been among the most inappropriately valued" Not surprisingly, a very substantial portion of Maybank's shares are owned by local and foreign institutional investors.

Thanks to the well-thought-out and targeted approach by Tan Teng Boo in the 2005 IPO, on its very first day of listing on 19th Oct 2005, the share price of ICAP closed at an outstanding 1% premium to its NAV, when many people thought it would trade at a discount. The share price of ICAP then went on to handsomely trade at a persistent premium to its NAV until Sep 2008.

Unfortunately, the share ownership experience of ICAP since 2009 has turned out to be different from that of Scottish Mortgage (SMT).

In 2005, only 3 mln shares, or 2.14% of ICAP's shares, were held by a Canadian institution, which subsequently sold all its shares in Sep/Oct 2008 during Lehman's Panic and pushed it into a discount.

Regrettably, the institutional ownership of ICAP has now surged to 32.39 mln shares, or 23.13%. As a consequence, ICAP's NAV discount has widened and persisted. SMT has experienced the opposite.


i Capital Newsletter Volume 34 Issue 18 (www.icapital.biz)

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-13 14:52 | Report Abuse

Using your same logic, if COL can continue to buy after disposal of the court case, the price discount is going to get worse, you are then frightening the shareholders to sell their shares before price drop further. Who to blame then?

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2023-03-17 09:47 | Report Abuse

ICIVF

This is another fund managed by ttb

ICIVF at a Glance
By 31 December 2022, the Fund has, from its inception in July 2009, delivered an annual compound return of 1.06%, net of expenses.
The cumulative total return of the Fund is 15.38%.


Comparative benchmark Total Return and Compound Return
MSCI ACWI(AUD)
Cumulative Total Return (%) Since inception 191.58%
Compound Return (%) Since inception 8.24%
ASX200(AUD)
Cumulative Total Return (%) Since inception 81.69%
Compound Return (%) Since inception 4.52%
ICIVF(AUD)
Cumulative Total Return (%) Since inception 15.38%
Compound Return (%) Since inception 1.06%



Fees
Performance Fee: 20.50% p.a. only chargeable if the following three criteria are met in the same period .....
Management Fee Approx. 1.5375% p.a. of the NAV
Administration Fee: Approx. 1.1272% p.a. of the NAV. These expenses are paid as and when they occur.




Where are the customers' yacht? :-)

Posted by speakup > 2023-03-17 10:01 | Report Abuse

No customer's yatch. Only got fund Manager's yatch

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-17 16:43 | Report Abuse

Looks like management fees are higher than investors' returns! Any statistics on AUM over the years? This is not a CEF, so investors can come in or leave any time, at the buy/sell spread.

Posted by speakup > 2023-03-17 16:47 | Report Abuse

management fees should time to performance
if making loss, no fees should be charged
if making small gain, charge small fees
if making big gain, can charge big fees

fair fair mah

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2023-03-18 09:41 | Report Abuse

>>>
dumbMoney

Looks like management fees are higher than investors' returns! Any statistics on AUM over the years? This is not a CEF, so investors can come in or leave any time, at the buy/sell spread.

16 hours ago
>>>>

AUM of fund is not clearly stated.
Rather opaque.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-18 23:54 | Report Abuse

What WB said on share buybacks this year https://www.ft.com/content/97b87555-3b1a-408d-90c4-21cb45afecb9

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2023-03-19 12:41 | Report Abuse

2. NAV Premium/Discount history of icapital.biz Berhad (ICAP)

From its first day of listing on 19 Oct 2005 (a 1% premium) to Sep 2008, except for a very short break in 2007, ICAP traded at a premium to its NAV for almost 3 years. Many investors are not aware of this crucial fact. In fact, ICAP's NAV premium reached a peak of nearly 26% in Jan 2008.

In Oct 2008, ICAP's share price plunged from a NAV premium to an 18.3% discount. What happened ?

In the 2005 IPO of ICAP, a Canadian institutional investor, Cundill Fund, decided to invest in 3.0 ml shares (or 2.14%) of ICAP's 140.0 mln issued shares, even though Capital Dynamics and Tan Teng Boo did not market the IPO shares to them. At that time, this was the only institutional investor of ICAP.

On 15 Sep 2008, the venerable Wall Street investment broker Lehman Brothers went bust. In Sep and Oct 2008, the S&P 500 plunged 30% in just a few weeks.
In 29 Jul 2008, the Canadian institutional investor still had 1.51 mln ICAP shares. By the next financial year, or May 2009, ICAP's sole institutional investor had sold all its shares. Judging from the volume of ICAP shares traded and the fact that the said Canadian institutional investor was suffering from redemptions and huge losses in its substantial exposure to the battered Japanese consumer financing companies like Takefuji, Aiful, Ancom, etc.), it was clear that ICAP's sole institutional investor sold all its shares in Oct 2008 or thereabouts and pushed it into a discount.

After that, the NAV discount started to narrow as it logically should. By Aug 2009, the discount was only 3.68%. Then, another apparently strange thing happened - the discount widened again. Why?

In financial year 2010, ICAP did not have anyone owning more than 5% of its issued capital or any publicly announced substantial shareholder (that is, 5% or more). However, by 2022, City of London Investment Management Company Ltd. (CoL) and gang have accumulated a massive total of 32,394,800 shares, or 23.14% of ICAP, and ICAP ends up getting stuck with a persistent and widened NAV discount.

Andrew Pegge of Laxey Partners owns 990,000 shares. In short, the more ICAP shares are in the hands of institutional investors, the worse the discount gets.


i Capital Newsletter Volume 34 Issue 18 (www.icapital.biz)

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-19 21:48 | Report Abuse

ICap obtained an interim injunction against COL buying further shares on 21/12/21 with share price at 2.24 and NAV at 3.46 at end of December 2021, for a price/NAV of 0.65. At end of February this year, share price dropped to 1.98, with NAV slightly down at 3.43, for a price/NAV of 0.58. So without COL doing any thing, price discount widened another 7 percentage points. Got to find another bogey man then, don't you think?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-20 02:57 | Report Abuse

Anecdotal evidence would suggest that the injunction is the cause for the widening of the discount, ceteris paribus.

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2023-03-20 20:31 | Report Abuse

"In short, the more ICAP shares are in the hands of institutional investors, the worse the discount gets."

JohnDough, you seem to have zero understanding of how markets work if what you have written above can be taken as correct! Still never let the truth get in the way of a good story! Have you considered a career in politics? I here the UK conservative party are recruiting and you would fit right into the zenophobic deceitful ways.

Why do shares get cheap? More sellers than buyers! How do share ratings improve? More buyers than sellers! That's markets 101 and if you don't get that then you shouldn't be involved in markets.

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2023-03-20 20:32 | Report Abuse

Also, and as you do know or at least should, there is no longer any such person as "Andrew Pegge of Laxey Partners". There used to be but there isn't now!

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-21 01:04 | Report Abuse

The equivalent of a run on a bank is the rush for redemptions in an investment fund, if it is open ended. But for a CEF, there is no redemption as such, so the only exit is to dump shares through the market at whatever price available, which is what is happening to iCap's price discount. Stopping the only big buyer there is is going to make it worse. Directors buying a few lots here and there are not going to restore confidence. Quoting WB is one thing, doing the same as him is another. WB is paying himself only $100K a year, so he is on the same page as his investors.

Posted by speakup > 2023-03-21 07:55 | Report Abuse

how come a local fund never do a raid on icap? i mean, it's already soooo deeply undervalued, they have a big margin to make money. just sapu everything below say 2.75 and that's still almost 50sen more to NAV. the margin is there

Posted by tantengbear > 2023-03-21 10:10 | Report Abuse

According to John D0ugh, "it was clear that ICAP's sole institutional investor sold all its shares in Oct 2008 or thereabouts and pushed it into a discount."
However, he also mentioned that "the more ICAP shares are in the hands of institutional investors, the worse the discount gets."
So which is true? Discount gets worse when institutional investors sell their shares? or gets worse when institutional investors accumulate shares?

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-21 15:59 | Report Abuse

@tantengbear This is the same kind of logic with low risk and high returns investment, against conventional wisdom. If there is such a thing and there is no barrier to entry, arbitrageurs can sell their high risk and low returns investment and switch to this low risk high return one, bringing things back to equilibrium on the risk/returns CAPM line.

Posted by dumbMoney > 2023-03-21 16:53 | Report Abuse

@speakup Local funds have no stomach to get into a messy drawn out court case with someone who will fight tooth and nail over such a move, which is an existential threat.

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2023-03-22 20:52 | Report Abuse

Now here's a thing that some people would tell you is IMPOSSIBLE! A closed-end investment fund (Personal Assets Trust) whose board have implemented a discount control mechanism which has kept the fund in a premium/discouint range of +2.98% to -1.97% over the last 10 years (source: Morningstar) and since 1999 has allowed the Trust to grow from £68m to £1.9bn, lowered the Trust’s ongoing charge ratio from c. 1.2% in 2009, to 0.67% today and enhanced the Trust’s NAV by over £17m 2009.

Posted by RealValueInvestor > 2023-03-22 20:53 | Report Abuse

www.taml.co.uk/blog/special-paper-no-11/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=special-paper-no-11

Posted by JohnD0ugh > 2023-03-26 22:46 | Report Abuse

2. A Simple Message

The messages from the experiences of Scottish Mortgage, Pershing Square Holdings, Warren Buffett, and our own icapital.biz Bhd (ICAP) are simple and very clear.

City of London (CoL) and gang bought more than 22% of ICAP shares, which is more than the permissible 10% share buyback, BUT the discount widened and persisted.

When institutional ownership was a measly 2.1% from Oct 2005 to Sep 2008, ICAP consistently traded at a premium to NAV for nearly 3 years, even without any share buyback or dividend payment.

In contrast, when the so-called institutional ownership jumped from zero in 2009, to over 23% now, ICAP then consistently traded at a widening discount to NAV.

Warren Buffett is spot on when he warned “Stocks heavily owned and constantly monitored by institutions have often been among the most inappropriately valued."
Let me repeat the most important point - the type and quality of shareholders matter.


i Capital Newsletter Volume 34 Issue 18 (www.icapital.biz)

Posted by Integrity. Intelligent. Industrious. 3iii (iiinvestsmart)$€£¥ > 2023-03-27 20:09 | Report Abuse

In the early years, iCAP was trading at a premium. This did not make sense, because the intrinsic value of iCAP was easily determined. It was its NAV. But did ttb warn those who bought not to be exuberant then.

Most closed end funds trade at a discount to the NAV. This is a known fact or phenomenon peculiar to closed end funds. The question is: why is iCAP trading at such a huge discount to its NAV. Using the institutional participation in iCAP as the reason for this discount is, in my opinion, a poor point.

The price of iCAP, as it is for other stocks, is determined by its prospects, its NAV and the market sentiment to own iCAP. It is a play between the supply and demand for its shares by the players in the market.

How will investing in iCAP ensure you your returns on your investment? How much is this return? When will you receive this return? Will iCAP be able to grow its NAV consistently and for how long from today? What is the opportunity cost: is it better to invest into bonds today at 4% or into iCAP or into another stock?

The sentiment in iCAP today is bad because the majority of those who have experienced this stock probably have lost money. They bought at the time when iCAP was trading at a premium to its NAV or at time when the market sentiment was high and thus, iCAP correspondingly prices higher than its normal, or for many they were market timers. Once bitten by a snake, the snake bite effect is deep in the memories of those who were bitten, keeping them away from this stock.

What has not been mentioned, which is also very important, is the lack lustre performance of the fund for a long stretch for many years?