Month: August 2010

Supermax Corporation Bhd

At the recent Invest Fair 2010, I set in a company presentation by Supermax. Supermax is Malaysia’s largest Own Brand Manufacturer and the world’s second largest producer of rubber gloves. The company presentation was given by Dato Seri Stanley Thai, Executive Chairman and Group MD. The company seems pretty strong and I feel has good prospects. I have yet to analyse it properly though. I may do it in the future but this post serves as information for those looking to adding another company into their portfolio.

Invest Fair ’10 – Kingsmen

I recently attended Kingsmen Creatives’s presentation at Invest Fair 2010. The company presentation was given by Mr Andrew Cheng, Group General Manager and the talk was entitled “Positioned for Growth”. I will list the key points covered during the talk and the Q&A section, as follows:

  • Generally, looking at past trends, second half of the FY brings about more revenues than first half due to sprucing up of shops and theme parks during year-end period. First half  contribution – 40%, second half – 60%.
  • 70% are repeat customers. Kingsmen knows their client’s style and thus, can cater to their needs easily.
  • Future growths: MICE industry growth both in Singapore and region; Universal Studios Phase 2, 3 and maintenance; theme parks and attractions to be built (eg. Legoland, Universal Studios Dubai, Hongkong Disneyland, etc); mega events like F1; re-making of Orchard Road; Marina Bay Sands Shoppes; alternative marketing programmes (eg. LED billboards); fixtures export – increasing interest from US, Europe.

After the talk, a few of us mobbed Mr Cheng to ask him more questions and he was more than happy to answer them. It was in a more relaxed environment and I felt he was very honest in answering those questions. The discussions are as follows:

  • Universal Studios Singapore project was a first for many companies involved in it. So, the learning curve was very steep and profit margins were slim. In fact, Kingsmen thought of foregoing taking up Universal Studios project as it felt that it didn’t have enough expertise. But, as a shareholder, I feel that Kingsmen did an outstanding job and should be given a pat on the back. In the future, Kingsmen is poised to take advantage of future mega-scale projects like Universal Studios since it already has the experience under its belt.
  • Kingsmen follows a supply chain model where it sub-contracts out the fit-out and because of this, it can be stringent on the quality of the work and rejects any work that are not up to standard without affecting its own business.
  • Recently, the company announcements by Kingsmen were almost non-existent even though they won a couple of contracts. Mr Cheng said that they would rather announce in one go than in bits and pieces. I was satisfied that at least Kingsmen is aware of this.
  • Liquidity wise, there are many buyers but not many sellers in the market. Kingsmen ever thought of doing a rights issue and stock splits to increase liquidity but decided against them. Mr Cheng believes when revenue hits around $500 million, the institutional buyers will become interested and liquidity will be boosted.

I snapped a few pictures of the slides (pardon me for the poor quality of the images):

Below is a brochure obtained from Kingsmen’s booth:

Lastly, if you have the patience, you can hear a recording of the whole 30 mins presentation that I have uploaded at 4shared. The background noise was overwhelming during the talk so you may have to strain to hear the recording properly.

Berkshire Hathaway’s Latest Stock Holdings

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B, BRK-A) and Warren Buffett have just released the latest holdings of U.S.-listed equities as of June 30, 2010.  Some may have changed slightly since the end of March.

  • American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) over 151.6 million shares, SAME AS last quarter.
  • Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) 5 million shares; SAME AS last quarter.
  • Becton Dickinson & Co. (NYSE: BDX) is 1.889 million shares, UP FROM 1.744 million shares last quarter and was a raised position last quarter too from 1.5 million shares before and versus 1.2 million before that.
  • Carmax Inc. (NYSE: KMX) is 7,725,900, SAME AS BEFORE; had been reduced from 8 million shares the prior quarter and versus 9 million shares a quarter before that.
  • Coca Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) right at 200 million shares, SAME AS BEFORE.
  • Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) 12 million shares, SAME AS before.
  • Comdisco Holdings (NASDAQ: CDCO) roughly 1.5 million shares, SAME AS before.
  • ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is roughly 29.1 million shares, A LOWER STAKE than the prior 34.179 million shares and yet another cut from 37.7 million two quarters ago and 57.43 million and 62.485 million before that.
  • Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ: COST) 4,333,363 Shares, SAME AS last quarter but that is after it had been lowered from 5.254 million before.
  • Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) 421,800 shares; SAME AS before but lowered from 1.276 million shares originally.
  • Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV) is a NEW POSITION of 4.4 million shares.
  • Gannett Co. (NYSE: GCI) 1,740,231 SHARES; SAME as before, but a decrease from earlier.
  • General Electric Corp. (NYSE: GE) 7.777 million shares; SAME AS before but does not include the huge preferred shares from late in 2008.
  • GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) 1.51 million shares, SAME AS before.
  • Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE: HOG) is not listed but was a not common stock so is not included in these filings; Buffett still likely holds the preferred shares and warrants.
  • Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) 2.757 million, SAME AS last quarter.
  • Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE: IR) 5.636 million shares, SAME AS last quarter but way down from the 7.78 million a year ago.
  • Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM) is 8 Million shares, A HIGHER POSITION versus 7,794,800 shares last quarter, and above 7 million shares and versus 3.3722 million shares in the quarters before then.
  • Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is almost41.1.3 million shares, AN INCREASED POSITION from last quarter’s 27 million shares.  This gets J&J back above the 36.91 million shares before that and on the way back up to the 62 million shares at one point in 2008.
  • Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) is 105.21 million, which is DOWN SLIGHTLY from the 106.7+ million a quarter before and down from the 138+ million before he was critical of the Cadbury deal.
  • Lowe’s Companies (NYSE: LOW) 6.5 million shares, SAME AS BEFORE.
  • M&T Bank Corp. (NYSE: MTB) is 5.363 million, A DECREASE from 5.563 million shares before that and down from 6.71 million shares before that.
  • Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) 30.783 million, which appears to be a decrease from what we listed as 30.83 million last quarter.  This is way down from the 48 million originally before two more quarters of decreases.
  • NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE: NRG) was 6 million shares.
  • Nalco Holding (NYSE: NLC) 9.15 million shares, UP SLIGHTLY from the 9.0 million a quarter earlier.
  • Nestle ADR is 3.4 million shares, SAME AS BEFORE.
  • Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) 7.641 million shares, SAME AS BEFORE.
  • Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) is 70.071 million shares; DOWN SLIGHTLY from over 78.317 million a quarter before and from approximately 87.5 million and 96.3 million in the quarters before that.
  • Republic Services Inc. (NYSE: RSG) is 10.827 million shares; SAME AS BEFORE but still above the prior quarter.
  • Sanofi Aventis (NYSE: SNY) is 4.063 million, which appears to be higher than what we calculated as being “more than 3.9 million shares” a quarter earlier.  That one could be a rounding difference.
  • Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF) is NOT a common stock… but Buffett still holds the preferred shares and warrants.
  • Torchmark Corp. (NYSE: TMK) roughly 2.82 million, SAME AS before.
  • US Bancorp (NYSE: USB) roughly 69 million; SAME AS last quarter.
  • USG Corp. (NYSE: USG) 17.072 million shares, SAME AS last quarter.
  • United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) 1.429 million shares, SAME AS before.
  • Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is just over 39 million; SAME AS last quarter after it had been raised earlier.
  • Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) over 1.72 million shares, SAME AS last quarter.
  • Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: was roughly 325 million shares, which appears mostly static after having been raised in the quarters before.
  • Wesco Financial Corp. (NYSE: WSC) 5.703 million shares, SAME AS last quarter

(Source:  http://247wallst.com/)