Plus, their cash business is even better than your Mee Pok Hawker or your Kachang Puti seller.  Why leh?  Coz most of their suppliers (based on size of their trade payables to retail sales) gives them 90 days credit. 

If a Kachang Puti man ask his supplier for 90days credit, I am pretty sure they will shaft a peanut up his ***.  haha .  Also don’t be too surprise if a number of their stuff is on consignment. 

So ask u this, U think they EVEN need to maintain a NET CASH position for working capital?  Just in case?  Please lah, for the “just in case” hah, just go get a OD line from a bank.  Even then, based on the above, they probably wouldn’t even ve to drawdown on it. 

Let me explain this simply. 

They sell 1 pen, they ring the cash register,  Sell 1 eraser, “kaching!”.  Sell 1 magazine, " kaching!" . Sell 1 assessment book, “kaching!”.   

Collect all the money leow, then pay rent, pay workers, and pay suppliers.  In Popular’s case, they some more still got balance left to put under mattress!  How much more?  Well, base on their latest full yr results, their PTB for retail ops was $19.1m.   Cashflow should be even more when u add back depreciation. 

They say they NEED all that money for working capital?  Smoke bomb bro. 

Come on lah, u can be serious right?  Let me say this again, they are a CASH BUSINESS!!  A very profitable and cashflow positive CASH BUSINESS!!!

So how did the AGM go? Anybody ask the below questions for me?  What about ask them to increase dividend?  Got or not? 

I am guessing no lah.  My dear brudders, u guys seriously need to fight for it and not let them throw smoke bombs at u leh.  They have cash in the bank of $104.8m and close to $86m in NET CASH.    Just from the $19.3m sales proceeds of 5 units at 18 Shelford, NET CASH likely to increase to around $105m. 

Need to get them to payout more in dividend, if not, guarantee u they might do something silly with the cash lah.

8 Raja, centrally in Balestier near Thomson rd.  Their largest freehold development to date to be completed middle next year. 

Bought end 2007 (ouch!) for total of $32m or $687 per sqft plot ratio.  Now, sure make money and relatively easy to sell if priced right.

After FOUR long and painful years they finally launch it.  As I understand it, they haven’t sold a single unit yet. 

Here’s the question.  What are they pricing this at? i.e. the average selling price.  Close to $1,800 psf maybe?  And the average selling price for the area?  I don’t know…. Ask them.    So are they pricing this to sell or pricing it way above market?  If so, why leh?  Too much cash oreadi ah?  keke

18 Shelford development which has already TOP.  Based on caveats lodged recently in May & June, they “suddenly” sold 5 units at approx. $1,740 psf. Total consideration is $19.3m.  IMHO, it probably caught mgmt by surprise.  All thanks to a neighbouring development which recently launching at an even higher selling price. 

In any case, within approx 10 weeks, there will be a substantial boost in net cash from this property development alone.  What plans for the cash?  Hopefully Dividend perhaps? Keke.

Let me explain translation loss…

Taking a hypothetical scenario, let say you bought a Hong Kong property back in 2000 for S$10m at a HKD/ SGD exchange rate of 4.5. and the value of HKD fell over the years against SGD by around 30% to 6.5.     

Becoz of this drop in exchange rate, you have to report in your accounts, a translation loss of S$3.1m.  This mean the value of this property in SGD terms is now worth $6.9m in your books and your NTA takes a hit. 

However, what is not reflected in your books is that while the value of HKD might have fallen, the real market value of that HK property might have risen substantially over those years, and perhaps even over your initial investments of S$10m.    SO how to know?  Simple, one off revaluation lah. 

If a substantial chunk of it came from property link and/or retail outlet link assets, then I am not too concern. 

A fellow former, i.e. pharoh88, recently highlighted in red with massive fonts, there was a drop in earnings.  But from what I see, the bulk of their drop in earning came mainly from translation loss.  Could someone help me ask mgmt just HOW much of that, i.e. what percentage came from their overseas retail, office and warehouse fixed assets.  Reason I want to know is coz I notice they historically maintain a relatively small amount of foreign currencies on their books and have a relatively tiny accounts receivable.  Just can’t figure out where that came from?