Who Own Aston Villa?

 

When the housing project of "Aston Villa" was launched around 2009 in Bukit Mertajam, a sales gallery with a huge word of "IVORY" was set up on the site. Initially the take up rate was quite promising. 

Aston Villa (not English football club) is a luxury residential project with 3-storey terrace and semi-detached houses with a big land and built-up area. It also contains a row of 4-storey shop offices, and a proposed alfresco F&B outlets space as future development. Its initial price for 3-storey terrace is around RM470,000 about 2 years ago and now it is selling at RM550,000. The semi-D goes above RM800,000 each.

    Aston Villa

From my observation, the construction seems to be in a tortoise pace until recently in 2011, the pace only starts to pick up. I notice that not only Ivory is involved, Dijaya is also the developer of this project, and New Bob Realty is busy selling the remaining units. You can see Aston Villa in Ivory and Dijaya websites.

From the promotion flyer of Aston Villa, it is printed that it is a project by Dijaya, Ivory is the turnkey developer and New Bob is the marketing agent. It just gives me an impression that Dijaya and Ivory do not take this project seriously...

Anyway, is it a good project? Aston Villa is located at the heart of Bukit Mertajam town. If you don't mind the air and noise pollution of a city center, then staying here is quite convenient. However, there is a trend that more and more young people are moving out from the city center to new township at the periphery such as Alma, Bukit Minyak, Juru etc. The streets in BM old town has been dominated by foreign workers especially in weekends and public holidays.

     Retail space

There is a shopping mall BM Plaza adjacent to Aston Villa, which is used as a selling point for Aston Villa. This mall is quickly run out of favour and has been a heaven for foreign workers, especially after the opening of Seberang Perai City featuring Jusco at Bandar Perda. GSC cinema and McDonalds in BM Plaza closed down long ago. Now its anchor tenant The Store supermarket will also leave soon, followed by a few tenants. The buses in the bus terminal there keep on pumping thick black exhaust smoke into the air.

However, if the developer transform this area into an exclusive area and attracts major franchises to its commercial area, Aston Villa could still be a thriving place. But who will do it?

Mudajaya Year End Sales?

Mudajaya sparks into life again!

After about 2 months of selling pressure, which saw Mudajaya's share price fell almost 50% from RM3.40 to RM1.80, buying interest seems to flock in for the past few days.

Mudajaya has made a big change in its board as the former managing director, Ng stepped down and is replaced by Anto, who is previously a joint MD and has been serving the company for 18 years. Investors may be worry about this changes, as reflected from the sharp drop in its share price.

At the price of about RM2, Mudajaya is deemed to be very cheap at PE of around 5. Its cash is increasing and it has no debt. Not long ago most analyst gave its fair value at RM5-7.

After Janamanjung, there is optimism that Mudajaya will secure more contracts in the subcontract work of power plant extension project, especially Tanjung Bin. The issue of delay in India's project is solved and it is expected to get more projects there.

    Tanjung Bin next?

Recently the company is actively buying back its shares and a few non-executive directors are increasing their stake in the company. There are rumour that Mudajaya may be a target for merger or acquisition due to its attractive price at the moment.

If you look at Mudajaya's share price chart, the volume is significantly higher for the recent 2 months, especially for the past one week. Though it may mean panic selling during this period which has dragged the price down, but it can also be some big players accumulating its shares. When a good stock is more heavily traded compared to before, I think it is usually a good sign.

Mudajaya latest target price:

	RM
CIMB	4.81
OSK	2.82

Mudajaya's target price has been cut again and again due to the overall gloomy global economy. However, it is still quite attractive compared to the current share price.

From technical point of view, the MACD is about to crossover, the RSI is below 30% and the volume increases. However, it still hasn't break its downtrend line.

       Mudajaya: still in downtrend

As long as the fear in Euro and US is not settled, any stocks will continue to retreat, including Mudajaya. The best strategy should be buying in stages into a good stock.

More Land for SP Setia

After the acquisition of a 404 ha land in Ulu Langat for a mixed township development worth RM3.5bil, SP Setia has just announced its intention to acquire another piece of land in the area. The said land with a size of 269.3 ha is just adjacent to the earlier acquired land, which is located at Rinching, somewhere between Semenyih, Bangi old town and Beranang. This add up to a total land area of 673.3 ha.

     Possible location of new SP Setia land at Ulu Langat

After the tremendous success of Setia Alam/Eco Park township, SP Setia is planning to duplicate the success in this new township at the Kajang-Semenyih corridor. The place is very near to Negeri Sembilan. Previously people may say that Semenyih is "ulu" and Bangi is too far from KL to have any significance in term of property investment. But now, the tide has come to these area, and also perhaps Dengkil, Banting, Sepang in the near future.

Can SP Setia successfully transform the land into a thriving and happening township? I believe that it can, with its track record, strong financial background, supreme brand name and the link with the government.

The property sector is poised for a downturn in the near future, I wonder when will SP Setia launch the first phase of this new development. The residential units in the township is said to be more "affordable" with the aim to let first time house buyers owning a house. Anyway, if it is going to launch now, I think the respond should still be overwhelming, with people queuing overnight. What to do? It's SP Setia.

    Setia Alam Township

GPacket: Don't Make Shareholders Potong Stim

Though making net loss in 13 of its 14 latest quarters, OSK Ventures still has confidence in Green Packet. Amid of the recent public sell down, OSK Ventures recently acquired 15 million shares of GPacket, to increase its stake in the company from 16.23% to 18.51%.

GPacket has been in the news for the wrong reason for the past 3 years since making a decent start in its listing career. It has plunged into making losses since year 2008. Its share price also slide from RM1.50 to RM0.50 in just two years time.

Recently the public may be thinking more of GPacket again, as they fiercely advertise their P1 4G service on the media, with the new theme of "Potong Stim", after the much debatable "Sudah Potong?" theme few years back.

GPacket looks like a company that leads the latest telecommunication technology in Malaysia. Although they make 10 consecutive quarterly loss, their revenue is actually increasing for 12th consecutive quarters, from RM18mil in 2008Q3 to RM128mil in 2011Q2!

RM mil		Revenue	Net Profit
2008	Q1	22	-3
	Q2	22	-5
	Q3	18	-10
	Q4	25	37
2009	Q1	41	-22
	Q2	56	-28
	Q3	63	-32
	Q4	73	-94
2010	Q1	87	-44
	Q2	90	-36
	Q3	101	-14
	Q4	116	-78
2011	Q1	122	-19
	Q2	128	-15

After countless empty promises of breakeven by its CEO, can GPacket really turn the table around by next year, and continue to soar from there?

From The Edge

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KUALA LUMPUR: OSK TECHNOLOGY Ventures Sdn Bhd raised its shareholding in GREEN PACKET BHD to 18.51% with the recent acquisition of 15 million shares from Sept 23 to 29.

A filing with Bursa Malaysia showed OSK Ventures acquired 7.50 million shares on Sept 23, 2.5 million shares on Sept 26 and five million units the next day.

The recent acquisitions raised its shareholding in the loss-making company to 120.90 million shares or 18.51%.

Green Packet posted losses of RM15.24 million in the second quarter ended June 30, 2011 vs losses of RM18.68 million a year ago. For the first half, net losses were RM34.24 million.

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