Yes, I agree very much. I think this is the reason why there are so few global succesfull Malaysian listed companies. Other reasons might be interest rates kept too low too long time (as long as you make more than the bank interest why bother, why try for a high return?) and the abundance of cheap foreign labour (why bother trying to increase productivity, just hire a few more workers?). Companies with a consistent ROE of 15-20% are very rare on the Bursa.

Larry, often a recovery is driven by largecaps, not smallcaps, I agree. But this happens not always, when smallcaps are really dirtcheap, and some largecaps are holding up very well (sometimes a bit too well, artificially supported), then the opportunity is in smallcaps. This happened for instance in 1998. I do not see that much value in largecaps at the moment, but I am a smallcap investor (actually more mediumcap, but in most countries in the world these would be called smallcaps), so I might be wrong and subjective.

APM is a company I followed from a distance for many years, will have a look at it again. I always saw it as a good but bit sleepy company.

I agree, Evergreens balance sheet is less than rock solid. However, their profit (which I estimate to be about 90m in 2008) is good, they do have about 100m cash, and most of their borrowings are longterm (shortterm would really be horrible in these testing times). I really hope they can pull it through these testing times. My main concern is recent news that global trade almost is coming to a standstill, that would be bad for a company like Evergreen. So there are real issues regarding their profit in 2009 and possibly 2010.
The management is aware of the problems (according to their last quarterly report), so I really hope they wont expand anymore, and will go in “survival mode”. Companies like Mieco and Heveaboard are doing much worse than Evergreen, in the long run that would be good for Evergreen I think.

They are nicely located next to the PTP port, well focused, have ISO qualifications and do care about the environment, website is professional, dilution is 0%. They bought the Hume company (from Hong Leong) which had a good name, and Hong Leong agreed partly with payment in Evergreen shares (at more than double current shareprice), which is a good sign. Some concern is some subsidiaries are not 100% owned, but other than that, looks excellent.

But, all depends their ability to service their borrowings, agree this is a real risk, and propably explains why the share tades at just 1/4th of the price 1 year ago.

Ahhhhh, easiest question ever asked, the one and only answer being: $$$$$$$$!

For PCL, they propably were desperate, they loaned already hundreds of USD to POSH, propably went to the banks for more loans, and were turned down. So then they had a look at the juicy balance sheet of Maybulk with its 1 billion RM plus cash, and decided to take a stab at it.

With the independent directors, the independent advisor and the SC all caught sleeping on the job, minority investors just dont stand a chance to fight this kind of deal, the best you can get is to expose it.

Regarding Genting, they do this kind of lousy deal every few year, couple of years ago the issue with the Star cruise company, couple of years back again the issue with Genting International, etc. They already dont have a very good name, they dont care.

For people who stay invested in Maybulk, please consider that the 1 billion or so they made from selling ships, that will not be repeated the next years, ships are going down in value, not up. Their operational profit will be much much less because of the drybulk index falling from a clip. And the juicy 1 billion RM cash with which they could do cheap acquisitions (for instance just now a shipping company in Singapore went bancrupt, also lots of shipping companies trading at very low prices), that cash is gone.

Still, I am not to sad, I invested my Maybulk money in Evergreen Fibreboard, a company MalaysiaFinance wrote about in the past:

http://evergreengroup.com.my/

PE of about 3, dividend yield 12%, price is about half the NAV, decent balancesheet, no dillution, no issues, cant get much cheaper than that can you? There are some macro concerns though, their business is linked to construction/property development which will globally contract these years.

MAW – Yep the revaluation is a big joke. Remember Maybulk has powerful shareholders, they can do anything they want but someone above is watching. Sorry to hear about your loss, but I am still holding on to some shares haha! waiting to for a good time to offload the rest. There are so many other companies which are more certain bets compared to Maybulk.

MBGE7CLT – It’s a bit sad with Maybulk and Resorts but remember there have been a lot of hanky panky in the US too. Do not let this discourage you from being the best investor possible, I still believe in Buy and Hold but only in very exceptional cases. See http://www.horizon.my/2008/11/oriental-holdings-bhd-the-buy-hold-advantage/
And honest management is so important.