September 2012 - SG Wealth Builder

Victory for k1 minority shareholders!

September 25, 2012 sgwealthbuilder 832 Views 0 Comments

Last month, I posted an article on GKB Holding’s proposed voluntary conditional cash offer for k1 Ventures Limited, the investment arm of Keppel Group. I am pleased to inform readers that the proposal did not go through and that the offer had lapsed on 14 September.

The company had received only 77.62% of the total number of issued shares, way below the required 90% for the proposal to go through.

Extension of offer closing date
I was quite annoyed with GKB Holdings for extending the offer closing date TWICE. I thought the management of GKB Holdings was quite disrespectful to the minority shareholders when they extended the offer closing date without even improving the offer.

In view of the APB and Heineken saga, they should have revised and enhance the offer to make it appealing to the shareholders. Instead, they stuck with their initial offer of $0.135 per share and expect more shareholders to take up the offer. Their stance is that the counter is thinly traded and the offer is made at a premium based on the last 6 months of trading.

Being a long-term investor and loyal supporter of the company, I am disappointed with this recent turn of events.

Property investment;

QE3 and opportunities for investors

September 19, 2012 sgwealthbuilder 925 Views 1 Comment

Last week, the US Fed announced another round of money printing programme known as QE3. It was reported that US$40 billion of new money will be issued every month until the US jobs situation improves. Does this latest move by US government means opportunities for investors?

Since 2008, the US government had purchased trillions worth of Treasury securities, hoping to revive the economy and stimulate job growth. However, the strategy doesn’t seem to work and US unemployment remains stubbornly high at about 8%.

Muddling through the years
I am not surprised that the US Fed announced this QE3. This stimulus measure comes at a time when the US citizen is voting for a new president. President Obama’s job is on the line, so he has to make a last-ditch attempt to win votes and placate the citizen’s rising unhappiness over the persistenet high unemployment rate.

But whether this third round of money printing will be effective is a big question mark. The previous two round of money printing had flooded world wide markets with “hot money” but ultimately those moves were widey regarded as flops, in terms of job creation for the US citizens.

Yes, its true that QE1 and QE2 had helped US to avert financial disaster in 2008 – 2009 but until now, the US economy still remain in a state of limbo.

Blog updates

The Finance SG is Singapore’s best personal finance blog

September 17, 2012 sgwealthbuilder 1096 Views 4 Comments

My blog has recently crossed the 100,000 page views milestone. Compared to other famous blogs in Singapore, I think this achievement is nothing fantastic. In fact, one well-known blogger announced that his blog garnered more than 20 million page views a couple of weeks ago.

Whilst I envy his achievement and hope to emulate his success one day, one thing I would like to register is that investment is a very niche topic. The pool of interested readers for investment or personal finance is much smaller compared to more popular themes like food and travels. Nevertheless, my mission is to carry on and share with my readers my investment insights, my investment mistakes, money-making opportunities and lesson learned.

Singapore Number 1 investment blog
I often analyze statistics for my blog readership and noted that up to 70% of my readers were derived from The Finance (www.thefinance.sg), a local blog articles directory on investment and personal finance topics. Normally I don’t write reviews on other blogs but I think I owed it to The Finance for my blog’s success so far.

I think I am not exaggerating when I claimed that The Finance is Singapore’s best personal finance blog.

personal finance

My thoughts on “Letter about leaving Singapore”

September 10, 2012 sgwealthbuilder 804 Views 0 Comments

Recently, I came across an article featuring “Letter about leaving Singapore”. I felt compelled to blog down my feelings as the letter struck a chord with me.

Like the author, I feel very jaded living in Singapore. In fact, last year, my wife and me were seriously contemplating leaving Singapore for Australia. In the end, we aborted our plan because of our aged parents. We love them too much and thought that we should not be so selfish and left them behind in Singapore.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer
Friends and colleagues often tell me that Singapore has become a playground for the rich people. To a large extent, I agreed with them. Very often, there were articles of rich tycoons snapping up landed properties in prime district area or making big profits from stocks and shares. The rich get richer.

On the other hand, many middle-income and low-income earners hardly get by in Singapore with their incomes. Many of them are in debts, have hefty hospital bills to settle or just not earning enough to survive. How can you be happy and live a fulfilling life if you are constantly worried about bills, loans and debts? How can you remain motivated if you are hungry and desperate?