The Sumptious EON Cap AGM lunch

This is one AGM that is different from the rest. First they gave good door gifts. Two water tumblers. The morning tea was good-roti canai and roti jala. Then a sit-down lunch.

Very well-organised AGM.

I am talking about the EON Cap AGM at the Crowne Mutiara Plaza KL.

For the first time, I sat through the whole AGM and listened to the briefing as well as the questions been leveled at the board and at the Chief Finance Officer.

Matters touched on includes tax credits, office re-branding,better debt collection, the rejection of warrants to Primus and new products for the public.

I was surprised when they told the meeting that they pay interest up front when one open a savings account and the existence of a special forced savings account with better interest basis points built into it.

Same old people asking the questions until the Chairman seems to know all of them by face.

The lunch was a round table sit-down affair. Food was served in a platter and we took our fill of it. There was sour soup and iced longan and almond jelly for dessert followed by tea/coffee and kueh nyonya. I was a thorn among the roses at this table and got to know some people. There was a Ms Khaw who lives nearby who walks through my alley and Nancy, a lady who is well traveled. She recommended Mesiniaga to me for its dividends-19% yearly!

EON Cap really treats minority shareholders nice.

Observations at the Mall

Yes, I was sitting down on one of the benches facing the pay-out counters of Jaya Jusco at the One-Utama. This is the hot thoroughfare where people passed you by. You can observe them.

Then there are the others you exchanged kind words with.

First, there was this large Pakistani-looking chap with his son. The son was playing with a Transformer figurine that could changed into a vehicle, an autobot. He was imaginative, playing with the toy and moving its limbs while making child-like utterances. He then passed on the toy to me asking me to convert it into a vehicle. Obviously I failed as I am no good in these things. When his mother came, they told me they are off to see the show.

Next was a bunch of Filipino ladies sitting on the next bench. They spoke halting Englih with a Pinoy twang. One of them looks pretty. I do not know whether they were maids because they are pretty young and do look fetching. Then after meeting one of their friends, they left for the food-court.

Sitting quietly besides me was an old lady, perhaps in her mid seventies. She had a walking stick. Soon, she was joined by her husband, pushing a shopping cart with their weekly needs. He sat on the shoulder of the bench. I made way for him to sit but smilingly he declined, saying that they must be on their way. As they got up to go, I noticed both of them were having difficulty in walking, likely suffering from arthritis or gout.

Then there was this grandfather playing with his grandson. The boy was running ahead of him and Grandpa has a red balloon in his hand. I thought this made a pretty picture and amusingly too as if Grandpa was playing and not the boy!

I watched all kinds of people passed me by. Some were really well dressed. Great hair, make-up, nice dress and in stilettos! The others were mostly bland, youths in sneakers, sandles and mules. The office girls were in the usual office black. In my mind, I told myself, people do not really dress up in Malaysia. Most look like the average girl-next-door. Some of them dress real sloppy too. Sakit mata!

Yes, there was a cute scout girl and another lady in low heels. One of her legs was bandaged tightly about her ankle but she walked alright. And oh yes, there were a couple of girls with great legs. Long legs with their feet in attractive heels. A couple of covered-up Middle-east ladies was also seen shopping and so were some Caucasians.

Some of the shopping carts were really full. Strangely, in these so-called lean times, people can still splurge!

Great country,Malaysia.

Impossible to Give it a Facelift!

Proton cars are apparently known for their substandard quality control.

Till today, one of my back doors do not close properly though there is a nice "OK" approval decal on the side window screen.

If your car was built in the year 2000 and before, apparently there was a botched up work on the steel used to make the car. The anti-rust was so badly done that most of these cars yuo see on the roads are pocked mark with rusted roles on all the doors, bonnet and roofs!

And so I decided to get rid of the pock-marked bonnet and do some spot welding on the doors. The quotation came back.

To get an original Proton bonnet and do the spot welding, I would have to fork out RM2,600. The Taiwan alternative with spot welding cost RM2,450, a mere RM150 lower.

Since the car is hardly worth RM10K, adding RM3k on to give it a face lift is certainly fool-hardy.

Best option-let is rot and then touched it up occasionally and perhaps do a more extensive job before selling it.

Finally Got Promoted!

I wished to congratulate my sister who just got promoted after donkey years of dedicated service to the department.

We always thought it would be sooner than later.

Looks likes it is later but congratulations all the same.

Here's champagne for you! God Bless and good cheer!

Mall Days

Two mall days.

One day to lose my keys and the second day, attempting to retrieve them.

I stopped at a couple of places at One-Utama on Day 1. Two concourse seats,eating at McDonald's,seating at a Nyonya restaurant, a cinema seat in Hall 6 in the Tanjong Golden Village cineplex and a seat near the Shoe Section in Jaya Jusco.

Went on key hunt on Day 2. I asked at all the Customer Services Desk at these places and came to nought.

Looks like I may have to make key duplicates.

Is Berjaya Sports Toto (BST) a Good Buy at RM5?

The Bursa was down for the last four days.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting,the contrarian players were nibbling about.

So I bought myself some BST at RM5.05. As the market was good this morning, it went up by 2 bits to RM5.15.

Now, let us discuss about BS. Is it a good buy at RM5?

The lowest of the year was RM4.04 and the highest was RM5.35. Before the recent special dividend announcements(both dividend and share dividend in specie), BST was floating about the RM4.68 price. Given today's price at RM5.10,this would mean an investor would have profited RM400 on paper not counting trading charges.

Let us build up a scenario when BST goes ex sometime in mid July. Let us assume that BST maintains the RM5 price cum dividends.

The dividend payout of RM300 will have to be off-set when BST goes ex on 13 July. That would mean the price would naturally be adjusted downward to RM4.70.

Then there is the share dividend distribution in specie. It is one share for every 14 held. At 1000 shares,this would work out to 71 shares. At an adjusted price of RM4.70, it will fetch a value of RM333 to the investor.

Since there is no additional shares on the market via this way of distribution,there will be no dilution in theory.

Again, as we all know, many will sell the new shares for a quick profit and this might destabilize prices for a while. However, the good news is that BST, depleted of its Treasury shares, may just end up in the market buying off these loose holders to bring back the price back to even keel at about RM4.70.

Final analysis:

Initial outlay : RM5,000
Returns by end of July: RM4,700 + RM300 + RM333 = RM5,333
We then minus RM100 as brokerage charges
Therefore returns is RM233

Benchmarked against the 2.5 % bank interest for fixed deposits, which will come to a return of RM10.70 per month,an investment return of RM233 in BST (for only a month) is far more superior than putting it in the bank!

Investing in BST is akin to theoretically putting money in the bank at 55% interest rate or a pro-rated monthly return 4.58%.

So English did not really help!

What a revelation!

That the teaching of maths and science in English the last six years has not improved the performance of students in those subjects must be the unkindest cut of all.

This was the Minister of Education's admission in Parliament today. How sad!“There have been changes but the difference is nominal,” he said, citing a two to three per cent change since the policy was implemented in 2003.

Blame the politicians, blame the educationists and even the teachers. They are just scapegoats for poor implementation.

Many in the Ministry of Education may have benefited from the perks of overseas trips as well as short training stints abroad. However, the quality of their teaching method may be suspect.

So what's new?