Working Girl

Excellent movie.

I love Melanie Griffith in her role as the underdog secretary, Tess and how she was played out by her boss, Katherine who stole her idea for a merger. Melanie is a beauty that grows on you espcially the way she speaks. A young Harrison Ford helped in making this movie such a watchable fare.

Great song by Carly Simon "The River Runs" and the haunting melody and music pulsates through out the movie.

A great revisit for me.

Morrie Talks About Life and Death

Morrie says, "Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

He contends that people do not think about dying because they are virtually 'sleepwalking' daily. They do not experience the world fully. In a half asleep mode, they do things they automatically think they have to do.

According the Morrie, when you face death, all these changes. You begin to focus on the essentials.

When you realize you are going to die, you see things differently. Material things pale in importance.

You will make time for things spiritual.

Gobbledygook,Grilling and Greed

I went to the MEASAT AGM this afternoon. They held it at the Mandarin Mutiara Hotel besides KLCC. Bukan main. There was no door-gift and also no cookies or cakes to go with the tea. Speaks volume for the company's respect for minority share-holders.

The meeting started when I got in. The bunch of directors sat facing us. The CEO, a business graduate white-man from Yale yakked away and to me, most of it was gobbledygook. Then came his response to the queries of the Minority Group. The projected slide was atrocious and amateurish and he got a chiding of his life from some brazen shareholder.

In my mind, I thought only one of the directors seems to know what he was talking about, the rest sat perched to their seats like clay pigeons, getting fat on directors' fees.

The CEO took a lot of grilling and as usual sidestepped questions. They always do when they are in a bind. The chairman just paid lip service. Can't expect him to do more.

Then the resolutions were passed and the meeting adjourned for high tea.

And what do you know, the hungry ghosts appeared at the venue. Senior citizens, mostly ladies swooped upon the food and some with open bags dumped the food into these bags for future consumption. Two ladies screamed in pain as trays of tim sum scalded them.

I skipped the tim sum section and went for the satay. Before you can say "Ah!", someone scooped up all the chicken satay and I was fortunate to get half a dozen of beef satays. I got some beehoon and half a sausage bread and started eating.

Meanwhile all around me, there was rushing, pushing and grabbing and squealing.

Absolutely shameless. A woman half bent for age had two plates full of fried rice and meehoon. Can she consumed such quantity?

After having a piece of water melon, a cake and some bread pudding,I took a lift back for home from Kheng Joo and his wife.

The only thing good this day was at the AGM at UEM Land where I received RM10 worth in a Touch and Go Card.

The Heat is at home for US Casinos

The fun is back in Macau. With the rising stock markets in the East,
US gaming companies are set to cash in some of their chips in Macau. It is timely now to sell or float assets in the Chinese gambling enclave so as to prop struggling parent businesses back home in Las Vegas.

These debt-laden US casino operators are betting on a rally in stock prices and signs of recovery in Macau's gaming market to spur interest from investors who have endured a volatile and mostly brutal year in gambling stocks.

Sources say Wynn Resorts is getting ready to dust off the initial public offering plans it started last year for its Macau unit in what some say could be a more than US$2 billion (RM7 billion) offering.

Las Vegas Sands is also preparing an initial public offering of its Macau division, having hired Goldman Sachs to run the offer.

Meanwhile, speculation is building that MGM Mirage, under pressure from US gambling regulators and saddled with about US$14 billion in debt, may sell its stake in its Macau joint venture.

Malaysian gaming group Genting, which recently bought a US$100 million stake in MGM and has been eyeing opportunities in Macau, is seen as a potential buyer.

What's fuelling the activity is the US casino operators' aim to monetise Macau assets in order to support struggling operations in Las Vegas, bankers and analysts say.

"What I think is driving the speculation at this moment is the financial distress that a lot of the parent organisations standing behind some of the assets in this market are facing," Adam Rosenberg, the global head of gaming for Goldman Sachs, said at a global gaming conference in Macau last week.

"As they've said, they're considering all alternatives to deal with their operational and financial situations."

The time to act is now, say analysts and bankers, as competition on Macau's Cotai strip is only picking up. City of Dreams, a mega casino resort by Melco Crown, opened up this month, adding another casino operator to the mix.

After dropping 21 per cent in the first three months of the year, Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index has risen 62 per cent since its low in March, luring potential IPO candidates such as Sands and Wynn back to the market.

"The capital markets are presenting an opportunity," Andrew Zarnett, managing director at Deutsche Bank Securities, said at the same conference. "It's temporarily open, which means there's something to be done."

Share prices for most US gaming companies have bounced strongly from their March lows but are trading at a fraction of a year or two ago.

Raising equity to reduce debt may be the best way for casino firms to avoid breaching their loan covenants, analysts said.

For example, MGM's credit default swaps, which measure the protection for bonds, more than trebled in March from January, signalling how costly it could be for the firm to sell debt then.

While MGM and Wynn have already raised cash through the sale of notes or stock in the United States, the deal spotlight is strongest in Macau, which is the world's biggest gambling market and is showing signs of a faster recovery compared with Las Vegas.

A Sands offering in Hong Kong could raise up to US$1.1 billion, according to Merrill Lynch.

Wynn delayed its planned Hong Kong listing when the global financial crisis hit in the fourth quarter, bankers say. The firm had hired UBS, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank for an offering aimed to raise as much as US$3 billion to help fund the firm's planned mega resort, a local newspaper said last July.

Meanwhile, analysts say Genting has been eyeing investment opportunities in Macau, even though there are only six gaming licences available and few assets up for grabs.

Genting looks best placed to buy MGM's stake, if the firm decides to sell in Macau, analysts say.

A 3.2 per cent stake in MGM, a share sale of US$425 million in Genting's Singapore unit by the family that owns the Malaysian firm and the subscription of a combined US$100 million worth of MGM's notes by Genting and its unit Resorts World have raised talk that the Malaysian gaming company is preparing to buy MGM's stake..

The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement asked the state's Casino Control Commission to make MGM "disengage itself from any business association" with Pansy Ho, the US firm said in May..

"It could mean either MGM or Pansy Ho has to exit the partnership in Macau and that will create opportunities for Genting," said CLSA analyst Aaron Fischer.

MGM would be a willing seller, analysts said.

"MGM will relish the opportunity to get out of Macau," said Sanford Bernstein analyst Janet Brashear. "They need the cash and they haven't been able to succeed in the Macau market." — Reuters

The Genting foray into Macau may just begin anytime soon.

Manohara files Police Report

True to her intention,Manohara Odelia Pinot mada a police report yesterday in Jakarta against her husband.

The ex-model apparently has also named the pilot of the private plane that abducted her from Jeddah and a guard that purportedly beat her up in the plane.

The saga continues.

The Genting Shadow Play

This was announced today (10 June 2009).

Gaming group Genting has paid US$100 million (RM350 million) for a 3.2 per cent stake in US casino operator MGM Mirage, an official from the US company said today.

The stake was offered under a US$1 billion equity placement by MGM Mirage last month.

"We take this as a sign of great confidence in our company," Alan Feldman, senior vice-president of public affairs for MGM Mirage told Reuters.

Last month, Kuala Lumpur-based Genting and its unit Resorts World had subscribed for a combined US$100 million worth of notes issued by MGM Mirage. The notes were part of MGM's US$1.5 billion fund-raising exercise to help settle its outstanding debts and for general corporate purposes.

Malaysian analysts had said the investments could pave the way for Genting to acquire a stake in MGM or take over the US casino operator's investment in MGM Grand Macau.

Genting, founded by the late tycoon Lim Goh Tong, is particularly keen to explore opportunities in Macao, where MGM Mirage has a 50-50 joint venture with Pansy Ho, the daughter of Stanley Ho, the Hong Kong gaming magnate.

MGM Mirage and Las Vegas Sands, which operate the world’s two largest casinos in Macao, have been struggling to reduce their debt burdens, inviting speculation that they could be tempted to raise cash by selling stakes.

Justin Leong, head of strategic investments and corporate affairs for Genting, said: “We are constantly looking to broaden our portfolio of strategic investments and strengthen partnerships around the world.”

Genting had been interested in potentially taking a stake in Pansy Ho’s US$1.25 billion joint-venture casino with MGM Mirage, the MGM Grand Macau.

And so the MGM notes are finally converted into shares of the MGM Mirage, putting Genting's shadow play once more into the lime-light. Will the main theatre of action be in Macau?

And what magic will they spin from now on for its shareholders since the AGMs of both Genting Berhad and Genting Malaysia are on 16th and 17th June?

Are the shares of all three Genting units (including Genting Singapore) on the way up again?

Back with a Vengeance?

This latest report seems to signal the return of the construction sector to prime time.

Malaysia’s construction sector is coming back with a vengeance as the government accelerates spending to counter the downturn.

According to Jon Oh, an analyst with CLSA here, the sector could have outperformed the broader market index by as much as 30 per cent over the last three months.

There are other reasons for the rekindled interest including the fact that construction firms have returned to the black: infrastructure builder IJM, for example, posted RM290 million in net profit for its 2008 financial year from a loss of RM421 million the year earlier. In addition, falling materials’ prices also imply larger margins.

But the key driver is the accelerated spending which seems to be driven by Prime Minister and Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak. In late May, for example, the government awarded a RM1.3 billion tunnelling project to a Japanese-Malaysian consortium of companies, including IJM, to kick-start the Pahang-Selangor interstate water transfer project that was first announced five years ago.

The RM5-8 billion project is an ambitious, and environmentally contentious, project to transfer water from a newly created dam in Pahang through a tunnel in the Main Range of mountains and piped from a newly created water treatment plant to end-users in Selangor.

It was deemed necessary in 2004 after studies showed that the demand for water in the Klang Valley, Malaysia’s most industrialised hub, would outstrip supply by 2014.

Malaysia’s poor fiscal situation put the project on ice but the downturn and the ascendancy of Najib, who is from Pahang, seems to have given the project a new urgency.

The new emphasis on accelerated spending is partly driven by the need to prevent a hard economic landing for Malaysia which entered recession in its first quarter.

But it’s also political: the ruling Barisan Nasional is under severe pressure from the opposition and needs to shore up public support by demonstrating a firm hand on the economy ahead of general elections in 2013.

On the water project, the construction industry is interested because only the tunnelling works have been awarded.

The Pahang portion of the contract — the dam, piping and the tunnelling — are likely to be dominated by Japanese contractors as it is being funded by a US$1 billion (RM3.51 billion) loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.

Even so, AMMB Banking Group picked Loh and Loh (a Malaysian dams’ specialist) and JAKS Resources (a pipes supplier) as likely beneficiaries for sub-contract work.

There is an estimated RM2.3 billion worth of contracts still to be handed out on the Pahang portion of the works.

Around RM4-5 billion worth of work is up for grabs on the Selangor side, which will have to be awarded soon, so that both sides can meet the 2014 deadline seamlessly.

This portion, however, is to be government-funded so all the work will go to local contractors.

For this, AMMB picks infrastructure specialist IJM, Gamuda, Loh and Loh and, once again JAKS as the major beneficiaries.

But water isn’t the only thing Malaysian construction firms are eyeing. Under government plans to improve urban transport, state agency Prasarana has been tasked with spending RM35 billion to improve public transport in the Kuala Lumpur area by extending Light Rail Transit and bus networks.

So far it is still in the design state but Prasarana has announced that it will go to the market to raise an initial RM4 billion to kick things off.

Pump-priming is working for the construction sector. So when is the ripple effect going to reach the common man in the street?