the humbler IPO and yet ...

After the milestone Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd IPO, I next applied for the IPO of little-known Careplus Group Berhad. At 23 sen a unit, it was cheap as cheap gets. Its bosses were folks from Seremban and it was an all-Malaysian, all local company. This was an ACE company and ACE companies unlike Main Board companies on Bursa don't need to have 3-5 years' profit track record to qualify for listing on Bursa. I even felt a tinge of remorse after applying for it as this company seemed too tiny to really make any significant impact in the market. They make rubber gloves, mostly latex rubber gloves, not the nitrile ones although in its prospectus the company had said that it was venturing into nitrile gloves with new machinery purchased from the proceeds of this IPO. Surprise surpise, my application and another application i know of has both been REJECTED today. this means that the retail over-subscription rate for Careplus' IPO is probably quite impressive. More impressive than even big brother Petronas Chemicals, i'm begining to believe. I didn't even get 1 blessed unit of Careplus Group Berhad out of the 20,000 units which i applied for. The company debuts on the Bursa ACE market on 6th December so i'm really curious as to how it will perform on market opening day. Unlike the Petronas Chemicals Group Berhad IPO which raked in billions of Ringgits, Careplus is projecting IPO proceeds of around RM15 million only.

POST-BLOG NOTE: little David falls the mighty Goliath. The Careplus Group Berhad IPO was oversubscribed by 84.67 times for the public category while the Petronas Chemicals Group Berhad IPO was oversubscribed by 2.98 times for the public category.

North Korea

Rogue states like North Korea should be taken out forcibly by an international expeditionary force sanctioned by the United Nations. They are a threat to world peace and are not only illegitimate, but hopelessly corrupt and criminal. There is no basis whatsoever for such a regime to continue to exist on paper or in fact.

Quantitative easing, anyone?

The US Federal Reserve prints money in QE2 (no, not the cruise ship, the second round of Quantitative Easing) as much as US$600 billion to buy up long term US treasury bills over the next 8 months. This is supposed to flush the US banking system with cash so that US Banks will lend out more money to US businesses which in turn create more jobs in the US and lower the US unemployment rate which is now hovering near 10%. That's in theory. But what happens in fact is that all this new money gets pumped OUT of the US into emerging markets in developing countries, so-called "hot money" snapping up properties, stocks, commodities, bonds in emerging economies and creating asset bubbles. Then i dread that as fast as this hot money comes in, foreign fund managers will take profit and spirit out their investments INCLUDING yours and mine hard-earned cash leaving markets in emerging economies crumbling in a tailspin.

budget 2011 - business as usual

The 14th budget deficit in a row since 1998 albeit narrowly lower at 5.4% compared to 5.6% for 2010's budget saw the return of mahathirism's megaprojects par excellence. They're going to build a new subway system for Kuala Lumpur (why did they build a monorail in the first place?), they're going to build a 100-storey tower in the heart of the city within a stone's throw from old chinatown (projected glut in office space be damned), they're doing all these and more. But no open tenders as usual (the day when there are open tenders for government/GLC projects in Malaysia will be a cold cold day in hell). Service tax goes up from 5% to 6% for 2011 and there's (among others) a new tax for astro satellite tv subscribers. The much hoped-for abolition or reduction in withholding tax (currently at 10%) for Malaysian Real Estate Investment Trusts (M-Reits) failed to materialise. And they want the private sector to take the lead in transforming our economy. Yawns! Ah the stale clammy air of recycled policies of old. Un-original, un-inspired, un-imaginative.

elections

i was at a government department recently and overheard civil servants talking about "what if i was picked as a candidate". Candidate presumably means standing as a candidate for the government in the coming general elections. Even before any official announcement have been made or parliament had been dissolved some people are already counting their chickens or manoeuvring for positions to STEAL more from the system and line their pockets. Kleptocracy in its full glory.

gratitude

I always miss out on the good things in life and chose instead to focus narrowly on the bad. That's a personal weakness i hope will grow smaller and smaller over time.

15 cents

Chinaman, Chinaman, sitting on the fence
Trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents
Along came a Choo Choo train
knocked him on the cuckoo brain
And that was the end
Of the Chinaman and his fifteen cents.