Focus Lumber Berhad

I applied for this Bursa mainboard IPO last week, at offer price of 60 sen per share, par value of 50 sen. The Sabah-based company (its bosses are mainly Taiwanese nationals residing in Sabah) exports plywood and veneer finished products to USA's recreational vehicles industry, amongst its export destinations. It was over-subscribed by close to 64 times so i don't think that i will get it unless i'm exceptionally lucky. Keep my fingers crossed. Allotment on 26th April and listing on 28th April.

Post-Blog Note: I didn't get any. On listing day, Focus Lumber Berhad (FLBHD) went up to as high as RM1.20.

come rain or shine, the mail just doesn't come through

Not many days ago i bought an electrical item and posted its warranty card back to the manufacturer in the state of selangor. The warranty card which bears the manufacturer's address on one side and my particulars on the other side (filled in by me), states that the manufacturer is to receive the warranty card back within 7 days of purchase or the warranty would be voided. I posted that warranty card on Monday last and yesterday (Tuesday) it promptly returned to me, in malacca, with the stamp duly engrossed. Apparently the people at the local post office couldn't be bothered to read the side with the stamp stuck on it as the address that the warranty card was supposed to have been sent to and simply just read the reverse side of the card and delivered the card back to me in Malacca. A simple, yet alarming lack of care on the part of our postmen. I can go on and on about how the quality of our postal services in recent years have declined. From my own experience alone, i have had letters delivered to me that were clearly addressed to another house, my own cheques never reaching their intended destination, late deliveries, the postman coming at irregular hours or much later than usual, etc etc etc. And recently, the case of the dozen or so posties hauled up by the anti-corruption body MACC for allegedly stealing credit card chips through the mail and replacing them with forgeries. What i don't understand is why we are paying a 100% hike in postage when the quality of postal services is going downhill so badly. Something is not quite right somewhere. We used to pay 30sen for local letters weighing below the minimum fixed scale, then from 1st July 2010 they increased the postage for local letters to 60sen. They also made all kinds of rulings as to the type of envelopes you used so that if you used a brown envelope you paid more in postage. And all correspondence to Singapore costs as much, nay, sometimes even more than to Australia would you believe it - now how is this possible when Singapore is just next door to us? And lately Khazanah Nasional Berhad wants to divest its 32.21% stake in Pos Malaysia Berhad without triggering a mandatory general offer leaving its minority shareholders out in the cold. Sounds like another rip-off job from Pos Malaysia. I'd be understating it if i'd said that our local postmen's on-the-job performance have been less than stellar. Obviously, the motto: "Come rain or shine, sun sleet or snow, the mail must come through" doesn't apply to Pos Malaysia. What then is our local posties' motto?Laziness, indifference, inefficiency, pilfering from the till? Good Grief.

Freedom of Information Bill ala Malaysia

Selangor has passed the Freedom of Information Bill ("FOI") after the Third reading. This is a first for Malaysia. The FOI bill in almost the same exact form and content is also on the plate in Penang. From what i have read so far, the FOI bill is not a carte blanche opening of the flood gates to quench every citizen's thirst for information and government accountability. It's a pale shadow of what developed democracies have. You gotta pay for information, they have 30 days to consider whether to give you the info you asked for, and if you misuse the information it's a compoundable and jailable offence. But it is a significant first step, if only just symbolically, for a developing nation like Malaysia. It's better than nothing. And I for one support it whole-heartedly.