Saturday 25 August 2012

BM Mahkota: An Ambitious Plan

Finally, the new landed house price in Alma area is so expensive until there is a need to build condominium? However, the condominium price will not come cheap either...

DNP Land is on its way to launch its first high-rise project BM Mahkota in Bukit Mertajam, tentatively in the first half of 2013.

     BM Mahkota

BM Mahkota is located at Impiana Square, or previously called Impiana Commercial Hub, sandwiched between Tesco and future Aeon shopping center. 

It comprises 3 blocks of 22-storeys service apartments with built-up area between 900-1200 sq ft. The estimated price is above RM300,000 each unit. This means that the commercial title unit will be priced above RM333 per sq ft, which is almost like PJD's Wellesley Residences at Harbour Place, Butterworth.


      Impiana Square: earthwork done at BM Mahkota site

The 360 units of service apartments will be built on top of a 4-storey shopping complex. If successful, it will turn Alma into a business center & shopping heaven with the likes of Tesco, Aeon, and Impiana Square shop offices.

Besides the service apartment, a high-rise hotel is also planned in a separate piece of land adjacent to BM Mahkota.


      Site of BM Mahkota and the hotel

The first phase of Impiana Square shoplots are expected to obtain OC soon. The area is boosted by the entry of McDonald's restaurant located at the car park of Tesco where the construction has begun. Lets wait and see what kind of business will come to this area soon.

     McD under construction

Friday 24 August 2012

Which Investment Should I Choose?

Investment has become a necessity in life, though this subject is still not taught in schools.

No one likes to lose money, but if someone keeps the money under his pillow or in the piggy bank for 10 years, he will "lose" money 10 years later, as the money will lose its value due to inflation.

For example, now you pay 1 dollar for a cup of coffee, after 10 years, the same coffee may cost you 2 dollar. If your 1 dollar now does not "grow" to 2 dollar after 10 years, you will lose your money value.

If we use the compound interest calculator (in the sidebar here) to calculate, we will need to have an interest rate or investment return of 7% annually for 1 dollar to become 2 dollar in 10 years.

So, it's clear that something should be done to "grow" our money to offset the inflation, which is about 3-4% annually. There are many kinds of investment vehicles, we have to choose wisely according to our risk tolerance.



In Malaysia, placing our money in savings account with pathetic interest rate will certainly cause you to lose money. If we put the money in fixed deposit, we may just be able to break even with the inflation rate. Thus, fixed deposit, together with bonds, are considered low-risk or conservative investment. It is suitable for those with low risk appetite or when time is not on their side.

The world is quite fair, we get lower return with lower risk investment and vice versa. So if we wish to get higher return, then we should turn to other investment like stock market.

For those who are interested and have time to study the stock market, they can buy the stocks by themselves. For those who are not interested or have no time, they can invest in unit trust/mutual fund, where they let fund managers to manage their investment in stocks/money market by paying some management fees.

In stock market, there are low risk and high risk stocks too. We can choose blue-chips stocks for consistent dividends but lower capital appreciation (unless we buy at very low during recession). In the other way, we can search for a growth stock with relative small market capitalization so that our money can have a chance to grow exponentially if we are successful.



Of course, we can make money or lose money in the stock market. When the overall market is not right, any stocks can plummet. If our time frame for investment is short, we should not put too many of our eggs in stock market.

There are other investment vehicles such as forex, options, futures, commodities etc, most of these are of higher risk.

Besides, real property is another good way to grow our wealth. It has been proven for more than 100 years that generally, property price will only go up, especially when it is in a good location.

Is real property investment considered high risk or low risk? Some may say that it is low risk because property price will surely trend upwards in long term. Some may say that it is high risk because we may end up serving the huge loan interest for life if we made a bad decision.



For me, if you know nothing about it, never try or never learn, then it is high risk. If you learn it, understand it and become used to it, then it is low risk.

"Don't put all your eggs in a basket". This is quite true. We should spread the risk by investing in a few investment vehicles that we are comfortable with. If we can tolerate higher risk, then we can put a bigger portion of our assets in higher risk investment.

Whatever investment we choose, it should suit our risk appetite and financial position so that we won't have too many sleepless nights!

Friday 17 August 2012

Notion Sets Record

Notion Vtec has released its 2012 Q3 financial result. Its revenue rises 57% YoY or 13% QoQ to RM95.8 million, while net profit surges 96% YoY or 28.8% QoQ to RM19.8 miilion. Both represent a new record high for Notion.

Notion will give out interim tax-exempt dividend of 1sen, ex on 3rd Sep 2012.
 
Rm mil Revenue Net profit
2011 Q1 60 13.4
Q2 54 10.8
Q3 61 10.1
Q4 62 12.5
2012 Q1 40 -4.8
Q2 85 15.5
Q3 96 19.8

The rise in revenue and profit are mainly contributed by more business. After the Thai flood and Japan Tsunami, Notion's business seems to get better. It secures new customers for hard disc drive due to shortage of supply worldwide. It gets more jobs from Nikon after the camera manufacturer's factory in Japan was seriously affected by Tsunami.

In the next quarter of Q4, it is expected that its Thai plant will resume full operation and its Ijuk aluminum recovery plant will commence operation. Its venture in China will also scheduled to start in Q2 of 2013 (Jan-Mac 2013).

There is a very real concern that whether hard disc drive business will sustain in the near future, given the popularity of tablet computer such as ipad, samsung galaxy etc. The emergence of ultrabook may have given some room for HDD industry to breathe but how long can it sustain?


Notion has successfully spread the risk by increasing its camera parts manufacturing business, thus it will not be affected to drastically by a fall in HDD industry. 

Notion's future looks promising. It can be a good stock to hold long term until something in the industry or management change.

Thursday 16 August 2012

Tambun Indah Sets New High

Tambun Indah has just released its latest 2012 2nd quarter financial result. As expected, it is its best ever quarterly result.

For 2012Q2, Tambun Indah's revenue grows 52% YoY, 20% QoQ to RM79mil, and its net profit grow 100% YoY, 3% QoQ to RM9.5mil. Its year 2011 dividend of 3.8sen will be ex-ed on 28th Aug.


RM mil Revenue Net Profit
2011 Q1 36 6.4
Q2 52 4.7
Q3 47 3.3
Q4 56 9.2
2012 Q1 66 9.2
Q2 79 9.5

Tambun Indah will launch 5 projects in the 2nd half of 2012, namely Pearl Residence 1, Pearl Impian 1, Straits Garden, BM Residence & Carissa Villa. Most of them are already open for sales actually.

Tambun Indah provides installment up to 36 months for 10% down-payment for house buyers. Together with its current 8 running projects, we can expect money to flow into its bank account consistently via the post-dated cheques & bank loan release for the next 2-3 years.

Besides Straits Garden in Penang island which has decent sales despite being labeled overprice, the next project that could boost its revenue is the Pearl City Business Park at Simpang Ampat. It may not be launched until next year though the land is being cleared at the moment.


     Pearl City Business Park: part of the land cleared