New Year Expectations

Happy New Year!

YTLPOWER

With the conclusion of the year, the GBP ended average at RM5.5001 per GBP. Not as high as I expected as I was looking more towards RM6 again but can't be helped with the Dubai effect still not fully realised as of yet for British banks.

Good news was Ofwat was kind to Wessex Water and allows them to increase their rates instead of asking them to freeze or reduce. Bad news was YTLPOWER is more or less confirmed to be the provider of WiMax service in some way or form. No word yet on how their subsidiary is being financed. Though they did tie up with TM to 'lease' their bandwidth thus negating the expected heavy expenditure into infrastructure.

I still don't like the business, because I don't like very new technology especially if you're the pioneering entity mainly because you'd had to do all the hard work of promoting the new technology only for some other late upstart to take the market from you. In this case, Green Packet is the one doing the hard work promoting WiMax with an array of ads. So YTL can hop on later without worrying people haven't heard of WiMax before.

As details of their project is still scant at best, I'll take a wait and see approach for this matter. And also, I admit that I was totally wrong about YTLPOWER not taking up the business even though most news more or less confirm the story.

Dividends are plenty at the end of the year, not as plenty as before though. With the acquisition of Seraya Power, there won't be any share dividends anymore. Cheque for December dividends has already arrived and expecting another payment in Jan 21, which ex-date is the 1st trading day of 2010 on Jan 4th.

I hope for the rest of 2010, YTLPOWER's newly acquired subsidiary would contribute much more positively to the group. And a more clearer and transparent quarterly report without any delayed announcements.


MAXIS

I got my share of MAXIS from the IPO. Strangely I got all I applied for from the public spread and got none for the 1000 shares I applied with the Blue form. Though I spent more time and effort to get the Blue form into the mail box. Where initially everyone thought the Blue form were of higher chances of succeeding, in the end the public spread via White form is the much better way to go. I got everything I applied for.

Regardless, I've already taken some profit on listing day itself and am keeping the rest for some dividends. Not really expecting this counter to fly up due to limited growth, so mainly will be another dividend counter for me. With the surprise 6 sens dividend at the end of the year, hopefully things will be even better in the new year.


Watch lists

I'm still on a lookout for more dividend counters other than REITS. My initial plan to enter STAREIT was stopped in its tracks when YTL announced some re-structuring with their REITs. My main attraction to STAREIT, Lot 10 shopping mall and Starhill Gallery is being sold and STAREIT is to concentrate on hotels. So now I have to find another REIT that I might like, researching on HEKTAR now.

UCHITEC also caught my eye as it was a dividend counter as well. The downturn has affected their business but they are picking things up again. Will find a nice entry price soon.

Was watching LEADER since it was into Power Generation in Cambodia but only 100MW, so I lost my interest again. But their cable business is good, it seems.

SUCCESS was recommended to me but since they are selling one of their profitable subsidiaries, doesn't seem like a good venture for now.

TITAN chemicals also bouncing up, their industry PER is normally about 5x and this one is around 3x. Their short term debts are almost paid off and their dividends will probably start again this year maybe. Nice counter since oil prices has been stabilizing, meaning their raw products prices are also stabilizing allowing them to profit more on margins. The were about 40 sens when their company ran into huge losses during the high oil price collapse. Now they are making money 3 Qs in a row. Last quarter results are expected end of January and it should be a good quarter for them.

GENM is again on my list mainly because the prices have stabilise though it's still not exactly cheap. Not a dividend counter but hotel vouchers are cool too. Their related party transactions are gaining notoriety with the new chief on the helm.

Notion Vtec, mainly for their robust growth and foray into Thailand. Although I suspect HDDs will be a thing of the past in the future, it still have a lot of life yet and still the most affordable storage around.