Recent Portfolio Update and Thoughts

Dear All,


I've divested all my units (3500) in HC surgical, with no reasons in particular except to re-balance my portfolio.

Raffles medical has continued to be a poor performer for me, and is the biggest drag as it constitutes the majority of my portfolio. Nonetheless, I will continue watching this counter and will likely average down.

Two other counters I'm closely monitoring is Jumbo Group (which I already own a small parcel of), as well as Comfort Delgro, with both demonstrating recent weakness; Jumbo due to its stagnant results and CDG with its recent taxi-competition. Although CDG is potentially losing revenue due to the various incentives Grab has offered to lure its cabbies, I do believe that CDG may eventually come to an agreement with Uber to counter this. How effective it will be is another question.

Nonetheless, CDG is looking slightly more attractive now that it has reached its 2014 levels, but i do not think that it has bottomed yet. It will be difficult to catch the bottom for sure and if I were to enter, I would have to commit to averaging down in order to get the best out of it. It is worth noting that whilst the taxi business does take up a huge chunk of CDG's operations, they do have other operations including public transport and engineering.

Furthermore, Grab/Uber, whilst snatching market share from CDG, is burning lots of cash in the process. Their model is not without it's downside as well. (Please note that I'm not speaking from personal experience, but based on what I've learnt from some of the Uber and Grab drivers when I tried the app myself); "it is annoying that a percentage of our earnings goes to the company", "Taxis are actually good too, they pay a high base rental, but they do not have to pay a percentage, which then varies with their earnings. Earning more means losing more".


I'd leave things here for now, thanks for reading.

A.

July Updates and Thoughts

The month of July heralded new highs in the stock markets globally, with DOW hitting a new high and the STI reaching its previous peak.

The performance of my personal portfolio has not been great though, with Raffles Medical being the worst performer. That said, I'm not too concern about things yet and I am still confident about its' growth in the long term. Profits are getting squeezed, and with analysts predicting the fall in NPAT due to their expansion and upgrading plans the next 3 years, buyers seem to be rushing out of this counter. As such I have taken the opportunity to acquire a small parcel of another 1500 shares which  brings my total RMG counter number to 4300. I will continue to monitor this counter and I'm currently planning on scooping up more if the weakness continues to persist.

(image credits: Jumbo Group LTD)

I have also acquired 4000 shares in Jumbo (42R), which has retreated back from its previous peak, hence presenting with a decent buying opportunity IMO. Similarly, if this counter continues to present with weakness, I may scoop up more as well. Although this counter has been compared to other services/food-services counters which are cheaper, I believe that this is an unnecessary comparison as they are all intrinsically different. Jumbo has a great product and they are already taking the right steps (I believe) in their overseas venture.

With Regards to my REITs counters, they have all been doing well despite the recent Fed rate hike in June. IMO this is because most of these REIT counters are still fairly valued. Looking back, Parkway REIT has been by far my best performer, with about a 28% gain since I bought (nearly at it's bottom) nearly 2 years ago, with 2 years of dividends to boot on top of it. On hindsight, this highlighted to me that if I strongly believe in the intrinsic value of a counter, I should not be too worried about the general market sentiments, which I was afraid of at that point in time.

That's all for today's update, best wishes to everyone out there!

A

Recent Portfolio Update - Singapore O & G

(source: Singapore O&G Ltd)

Dear all,


As most of you would have read in my previous post, I divested all my holdings (6000 units post-split) in Singapore O & G for an average price of approximately $0.655 per unit. (post-split) about 2 months ago. (NB: this was near to it's peak)

I took advantage of the recent weakness to take a small bite (3500 units) of the company again @ $0.475 per unit. This entry price represents a 27.5% discount as compared to my previous exit-price. In addition a unit price of $0.475 represents a P/E ratio of 25 times earnings (EPS of $0.019), a stark difference to the previous P/E of 35.

Once again, this is a decently risky share. As per most small-cap medical groups, revenue and income are heavily dependent on the key medical practitioners. Furthermore, this is a rather new counter, without a longstanding track record. I'm also uncomfortable with the O&G segment remaining as a significant bulk of the revenue, due to falling birthrates. However this is somewhat offset by their expansion of other specialisations (Derm, Surg etc). In addition, it is worth noting that there was some insider selling (though insignificant) at the start of the year, and the end of last year. The recent sell-down is also questionable due to the large volumes unloaded (and loaded), although there has yet to be any news. There may be a tinge of panic selling amongst this, which I am banking on, but I definitely won't jump to conclusions yet.

To conclude, this is likely to be a short-medium term play rather than a long term one as this is more based on a bit of speculation and a 'value-play'.

Good luck to all holders.

A.

Recent Portfolio Update - Singapore O & G

Dear All,

I have divested all my holdings (3000 units) in Singapore O & G at an average price of $1.31. (Current share price of Singapore O & G is $0.665 which would work out to be $1.31 before the 2 for 1 share split).

(Image Credits: Singapore O & G Ltd)

I still agree that Singapore O & G has a lot of potential to grow. It does still have a reasonable share price at the moment based on its earnings, however, with healthcare counters already taking up the majority of my portfolio, I decided that it was in my best interests to rebalance my portfolio. This is so that I will be able to jump on any opportunities in the market that may come in the future.

The reason why Singapore O & G was chosen out of all my healthcare counters, is because I believe that whilst it carries decent value, the other healthcare counters I currently hold are more "undervalued" relative to Singapore O & G at their current prices, and I believe that they would bring about greater value in the short to medium term at least.

I am also slightly troubled by the declining birth rates. Although Singapore O & G has been able to consistently grow its market share, there would eventually be a point in time in which it's ability to grow my acquisitions becomes more and more limited. This is understandable because as more and more suitable practices are being acquired, the "less suitable" ones increase in proportion to the overall market.

That aside, I will however be likely to reinvest in Singapore O & G if its' plans to expand overseas materialize. The demand for medical tourism seems to be plateauing and unlike my other healthcare counters, Singapore O & G does not have overseas exposure. Doing so would decrease concentration risk and provide much greater opportunities to grow.


Thanks for reading everyone!

A.  😁

Why I prefer investing in REITs compared to investing directly in property

[It's 3am in the morning and here I am typing away. Thinking about it, I'm really starting to enjoy blogging now, to be able to consolidate my thoughts and to present it in a logical fashion does provide a decent amount of satisfaction 😆] Alright, I'll not carry on and on about this, so here's what I actually want to talk about, REITs:

(i drew this XD)⁠

1. Liquidity

This is probably the main reason why I'm leaning towards REITs. This is also the beauty of the share market in general. If you wake up in the morning feeling like you need some funds for other purposes, you can always simply sell with the click of a button! (Or a few buttons). There are always buyers on the market daily. Of course you may want to find a "better day to sell" as any stock on the stock market does fluctuate a wee bit on a daily basis even though the fundamentals of the company in question may not have changed one bit.

You can't do this when it comes to properties, more often than not, a significant waiting time is involved, whether or not you are buying or selling a property. Listing it on a property-for-sale webpage; recruiting a property agent's help; showing the property to potential buyers who may not even be truly interested is all part of the package as well.

2. The ability to buy and sell off a portion of what you have

You can also sell a portion of your holdings (of course this is limited by the rule that the minimum trading amount is one lot.) which is still fair in my opinion, especially since a hundred shares now constitutes a single lot whereas in the past, one thousand shares constitutes a single lot.

(What's still unreasonable is the minimum commission amount, which I will not be going into in this post, as it's not the point here.)

On the other hand you can't do this with a property, how are you going to divide up a house overnight and put it up for sale? Well unless if you're telling me you own thousands of properties, then this may not apply to you 😁. Furthermore, investors with tight finances, such as students (including myself) are not able to afford buying an entire property directly, and taking a loan to do so is out of the question as well (this point slightly overlaps with my economies of scale points).

3. Economies of scale

Let's be honest, if we, the common folk are interested in say industrial properties or healthcare properties, what are the chances that we can afford it? Do we have the funds to buy a hospital like how Billionaire Mr. Lim bought Thomson Medical? We probably do not.

But by pooling funds together, which is essentially what a REIT does, managers of the REIT are able to buy such properties! This also brings me to my point that aside from having greater bargaining power and economies of scale, us as investors, are also able to select from various types of property trusts that suits your palate! To name a few, we have; Healthcare, Industrials, Retail etc.

This essentially allows us to diversify the little amount of money we have as well. By buying various REIT shares, we are arguably “less at risk” of price fluctuations than if we were to own a single property.

4. Convenience

Owning a property can be a hassle. Or rather collecting rent is. What if the tenant is being uncooperative? Sure, there are legal means of settling the issue, but I’m trying to point out that it is going to be a huge headache and a waste of time. Furthermore, if the tenant for some reason is only able to make cash payment, you’ve got to make a trip down to collect your rent! You also have the issue of them haggling for rent (at before a contract commences that is). 

With REITs all these issues are avoided, or rather managed by someone else, or a team that’s actually professional. All you’ve got to do is sit back and wait for the dividend payouts, which goes directly to your bank account.

Not a free ride

I would like to add in this point in time, that Investing in REITs isn’t a bed of roses though, and there are some downsides: management fees (though generally you can be assured that 90% of the REITs income is distributed as it grants the REIT tax incentives), lack of control and lack of rights (unless you hold a substantial proportion of shares), volatility (just like other stocks on the market, although the prices of REITs are generally less volatile). Just like other stocks, monitoring prices from time to time, reading their financial reports, looking out for any updates/announcements would do good as well.

Although I do already own shares (albeit small parcels) in some listed REITs, there are some which I plan to increase my holdings in, and also a couple of others which I will be talking about in a separate post. (I will be talking about these in a separate post, so stay tuned!)

Till next time!

Best Regards, 

A 😁

3 Potential munchies over the next few months

For those of you who have been following my blog, you would probably know that my current portfolio is heavily concentrated on the healthcare sector. And I had previously planned to keep the proportion of healthcare counters to about 50% of my portfolio. However, with my latest purchase of shares in ISEC healthcare which i blogged about here, healthcare sits at a significant 70% (approximately) of my portfolio. 

I am planning to balance my portfolio and I am currently, and will continue looking at counters from other sectors. Please note that whilst I believe balancing my portfolio is necessary, I will not do so unless I find suitable shares at prices I can swallow.

Here are some counters I am looking at;

Singapore Telecommunications (Z74)

If you had read my portfolio page, you would have realised that I do have a small parcel of Singtel shares already, and if you are interested, I blogged about it here recently. Potentially, I am looking at doubling my holdings in this counter, and my reasons for investing in it remains unchanged from what I previously mentioned. But in short, I believe Singtel remains an excellent defensive play due to its' significant diversification, good management track record, and little free-float. 

Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust (BUOU)

(image credits: Frasers Logistics Trust)

I have never bought an industrial REIT before, and this is the first one on my watchlist. They have recently exceeded their maiden DPU forecast, and currently sits at approximately 99% portfolio occupancy. They also boast a WALE of about 7.0 years. This is higher than most other industrial REITs listed in Singapore. For those of you who are new to the term, WALE (Weighted Average Lease Expiry) essentially reflects how long the average remaining lease period is, to a tenant of the REIT. This is done by taking into account every tenant's respective contribution to the REIT and their remaining lease period, and aggregating the amount. In short, the greater the WALE, the less risk the REIT faces as tenants aren't going to vacate anytime soon.

The REIT also has sufficient room to acquire more properties, and they have recently made a good acquisition (The Martin Brower Property), which increased their WALE and reduced their average portfolio age.

I also like the fact that the REIT's properties are based in Australia, and collects rent in AUD. Although there is no risk of unfavourable/favourable currency swings at the moment due to hedging, in the next FY (FY18), it may not be the case. I am bullish on the Australian dollar, and its economy, and I believe that its' currency will continue to be on the upswing, which could potentially increase distributions in this REIT. We should also note that Australia has not experienced a single recession in the past 25 years. 

This counter is not that expensive yet, and is currently hovering right between the 52 week low and high. Hence, I am monitoring this counter closely for an opportunity to invest.

ISOTeam

This is probably the least well known counter out of the three. This company specialises in facilities management and upgrading of the public housing estate in Singapore. Sounds defensive already doesn't it? Services they provide range from painting services, pest services to re-roofing and waterproofing. At the same time they do have a number of subsidiary companies which I will not be writing about here as it is not the main point. The problem though is that this may have already been factored into the share price, as you can see in the chart below and it is decently expensive, if not the most expensive for a counter classified under the construction sector: 

(image credits: yahoo finance)

I will probably be just monitoring ISOTeam for now due and will only strike if there's a window of opportunity.

On this note, that will be all from me today, and I'd like to thank you for your support!

Best Regards,
A 😁

Happy Lunar New Year!

Dear friends,

If you're reading this, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy and prosperous Lunar New Year. If you're Chinese and follow the tradition, may you have a great time visiting and spending time with your family members and friends! If you aren't, I would also like to wish you an awesome extended holiday with your family and friends! 😁

(image credits: clipartfox.com)

Remember to stay happy, and calm!

During this festive season, I do know that there are investors out there who buy (for good luck) and also those who sell (due to the increased demand!). I would just like to remind everyone (including myself) that whilst doing this, remember to make prudent and informed choices!

The stock market is much about human psychology after all, and when prices go up and up, with the markets being in the green, it becomes "easy or good to buy" to non-holders. On the other hand, holders are tempted to sell. During such times, I suppose it is important for both non-holders and holders to think again; about their investment thesis for the counter in question: has it changed? (well of course this is assuming that you are a medium-long term investor and not a trader.)

If the answer is no, then there you have it. You don't have a good reason to buy or to sell. Excessive buying and selling can potentially lead to regrets due to the opportunities lost (e.g. oh no i sold the shares of the company that I was very confident in and the price went up!), and also due to the heft brokerage fees incurred (> $20 generally for each trade is a lot of money!). I thought of the second point as I do know of a friend who makes many many trades and still end up holding shares in the same company. And this is without making any profit from the trades, coupled with some losses incurred due to the fees involved!

This argument does not just apply to this festive season but also to every other occasion in the year which influences short term investing decisions and hence the overall market direction. So, remember to keep calm when making your decisions!

That is all from me today, once again, I'd like to wish everyone a safe, happy, and prosperous 2017 ahead.

Best Regards,
A 😁

FIrst REIT latest earnings

This is not going to be a long piece! As I am sure First REIT is pretty well known to most investors. But just in case: First REIT is an Healthcare REIT mainly based in Indonesia (with small concentrations in Singapore and Korea) listed on the SGX and they currently have a market capitalisation of about $1B, and 18 properties. 

For those of you who have read my blog before, you would know that I am currently holding a small parcel of shares in this REIT (if you are curious you can check out my portfolio tab section)

Distribution

The latest quarterly (oct-dec) distribution per unit (DPU) amounted to 2.13c, up from 2.12c in the previous quarter. You may also like to note that DPU has risen steadily for the past 12 quarters (from 1.96c to 2.12c currently. Dividend yield stands at 6.47% based on current prices. You can see from the chart below that the DPU has grown together with the REITs' Earnings per share (EPS), which is a good thing.

(image credits: Singapore Exchange Ltd)

Growth

To a certain degree, the REIT has experienced growth. We can see this in the chart below; from their  increasing operation cash flows and increasing revenue over the past few years. We should also note that most recently, the REIT has acquired Siloam Hospitals Labuan Bajo, and the deal was completed on the 30th December 2016, and the contributions of this new property has not yet been accounted for in the latest quarter.

(image credits: Singapore Exchange Ltd)

Valuation

The current PB ratio sits at 1.205 (which is decent compared to historical levels. Gearing is currently at 31% which is decent as well, and provides a little headroom for further acquisitions (SGX REITs have a gearing limit of 45%). For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, it is a common term used when describing the valuation of REITs, and it is equal to the REITs' debt divided by the total equity value. 

Other thoughts

There was initially panic when the REIT's sponsor, Lippo announced potential plans to shift the REIT (along with Lippo Malls REIT) to Indonesia's exchange. However the news has quietened down for now, and I believe one reason it has not yet happened is due to the risk free rate in Indonesia being far greater than that in Singapore, hence potentially requiring a greater yield to attract investors, which may not be plausible. 

At the same time, it is also encouraging to see that the REITs' managers have been consistently participating in the Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRP) for First REIT, which to a certain extent demonstrates that they are confident in the REITs' future.

I will just be sitting back and collecting dividends for now, and I believe this is not a counter that I need to monitor daily. 

Cheers, 

A 😁

Recent Investment/ Portfolio Update - ISEC Healthcare

 

(image credits: ISEC Healthcare)

It's been awhile since I have updated my blog, and I am very pleased that I do have an update now! I have bought 13000 Shares in ISEC Healthcare with an  average price of $0.285. You may like to note that current price levels are very near to their IPO price of $0.280, and I have been monitoring this counter for a few months awaiting a drop to favourable levels whereby it has now arrived at. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this counter, this company provides medical services, and its' main focus is on opthalmology (eye medical care services). It currently has operations in Malaysia (KL, Penang), and Singapore.

Expansion & Synergies

ISEC has seen some issues recently in the past and previous year, with its Novena eye center clocking a lost for the group totalling $2.6M, due to both losses and closure related activities. (PS. It has closed down due to failure to renegotiate wages with the 3 doctors working at the center) However, the board has hinted that business opportunities remain strong, both locally and abroad (Malaysia and Vietnam, and the Asia Pacific region in general).

True enough, under a year ago, they have acquired shares in Southern Specialist Eye Centre in Malaysia, and most recently, the acquiring of 4 General Practice Clinics in Singapore. Although their expansion plans in Vietnam have not materialised, I believe that it is only a matter of time. There is potential for GP-Opthalmology referrals and for GP follow-ups as well. Although this is not definite but there is a decent likelihood. There would also likely be cost savings along with expansion; due to synergies and economies of scale (which applies to most businesses including ISEC) - better negotiating power for medical equipment, more efficient managing of facilities, staff-sharing between centers; to name a few.

Population Tailwinds

Everyone has probably heard of the ageing population argument for healthcare (ie. average population age increasing = more demand for healthcare in general) already so I would not repeat that here. But instead let me give a tiny snapshot about why opthalmology as a specialty is particularly important or potentially lucrative in a few short dot-points;

1. LASIK is gaining popularity, an increasing amount of Singapore and the world's population is experiencing short-sightedness (largely due to technology's contribution)
2. Cataracts and Glaucoma are very common eye problem requiring urgent treatment
3. Singapore (which is a main source of revenue for ISEC), has the 2nd largest proportion of diabetics amongst developed nations. Diabetes has also been on an uptrend in other countries including Malaysia the other main source of revenue for ISEC (also note that Malaysia has a greater prevalence of diabetes than the world population (about 8% higher)).
4. Diabetes has many microvascular and macrovascular complications. Amongst the former, eye complications are one of the first signs of manifestations and require urgent treatment
5. Of which, Cataracts, Glaucoma and Retinopathy (damage of blood vessels of the retina) are common complications

There are of course many other arguments (e.g. ozone depletion -> increasing UV exposure -> increase risk of cataracts and other eye conditions) that would go the same way, however I will not be going into them as the purpose of this piece is just to give ourselves a snapshot of the big picture.

I believe that the main take away point is that eye conditions are getting increasingly more common locally and abroad. Furthermore, eye conditions are arguably less insidious than other medical conditions, as their manifestations appear quickly and bring about severe changes to the standard of living of patients', leading to patients being more likely/receptive to receiving medical treatment for their eye (and being more than willing to pay for it) as compared to other specialties.

Financials

(Image Credits: Singapore Exchange Ltd)

As you can see revenue and gross profit as well as dividends per share have been on a steady rise, which is all good. Current P/E is also at 26.9 which is high, but then again relatively low to the other listed healthcare providers. 

ROE currently sits at 10.4 which is not fantastic but not terrible either, as compared to the other years since listing, and there are signs that their returns are increasing, perhaps due to their expansion from the utilisation of free cash flow and IPO proceeds. On that note, they also have $26.9M in cash and equivalents and no debt as well, giving them sufficient room to acquire other practices when they deem fit. 

In summary, there are a number of things I like about this counter and I have hopes that they are back on track onto achieving success. For now I'll just be sitting back, collecting dividends, and monitoring their progress. This is probably a counter I will be holding for the long term.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my 2 cents!

Cheers,
A 😁

Potential Munchies - A little known company?

Hi everyone, hope the New Year has been treating you all well thus far! I was bored today so I did random searches on SGX-Listed Catalist companies. 

The reason why I am interested in smaller-cap (for those of you who dont know, this is a common abbreviation for "companies with smaller market capitalisation" is due to their greater potential for growth. (I've spoken briefly about this in my earlier posts) Long story short, smaller companies are more likely to be able to grow and increase their market share as compared to larger companies, due to reasons such as product saturation.

So I found a pretty interesting company/group: 

Keong Hong Holdings (5TT.SI)

(image source: keonghong.com)

Well technically this group is not a Catalist group, it is: founded in 1983, listed in 2011 on the catalist, but transitioned to mainboard in 2015.

This group basically does construction and building, has a P/B of 0.79 which is really good value, basically you will be paying less for the company's assets than the market valuation, and this is still decent when comparing to other companies in the same sector.

It also sports a dividend yield of 7.49% (however the dividends have not been very consistent). Upon a closer look however, its' lowest dividend historically would have been in 2015, where it had total dividends of $0.018, which based on today's share price of $0.465, would be equivalent to a 3.87% yield, which is still decent. They're dividend payout ratio also sits at only 23.1%, which would give them ample financial headroom.

If you take a look at its share price; it has actually been growing at a decently fast rate since its listing, when compared to the STI ETF (ES3). Although history doesn't determine the future, it does show that this group, or the markets' expectations of this group have been growing:

(image credits: yahoo finance)

Ok moving on, the group appears to have a decent pipeline of projects in place. The construction order book currently stands at $351M, which allows for a sustainable flow of activities up till the end of FY2018. It is also in charge of a number of notable projects including the Raffles hospital extension, it also has several overseas projects, including the expansion of the Kooddoo domestic airport (Maldives), and the construction of the Pullman Maldives Maamutaa Resort in the Maldives, the group it also has investments in Japan. 

Although due to property cooling measures and oversupply (IMO) of new private housing projects would be very challenging, I believe that the group is going in the right direction by expanding overseas. 

The group has set its sights on the tourism industry in Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Australia and is planning to grow its contributions from hotel development and investments, which is probably a good step forward as it is currently highly reliant on the Singapore private property market for its' revenue source. 

Therefore, I will certainly be putting this company on my watchlist for now and will be monitoring its' future developments.

That's all from me for today!

Best Regards, 

A

Potential Munchies? - Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel)

(image credits: singtel.com)

Even though stocks have been generally recovering the past year (after the scare of China's slower growth, with Brexit, the Italian referendum and the US elections along the way), surprisingly telcos have not been doing well.

Of course this may be due to the nature of the telco stocks, which mainly suit the appetites of dividend seeking consumers. With rising interest rates, yield seekers would be attracted towards deposits and bonds, as the difference in yields between dividend paying stocks and deposits/bonds is now lowered, resulting in dividend paying stocks becoming less palatable due to the risks involved as well.

In addition, mobile penetrance is so high in Singapore at the moment, with the Infocomm Media Development Authority reporting that it currently stands approximately between 140-150%. What this means is that on average one singaporean has 1.5 mobile Subscriptions (of course this is not true in reality, with some having 0, 1 or 2 or more subscriptions). Furthermore, this figure has declined very slightly in the past few years. What this suggests to me is that, the industry is already fully saturated.

(image credits: TPG.com.au)

Most of you already probably know that TPG Telecom, a listed Australian Telco has won the rights to be the 4th Telco in Singapore. TPG, a lower cost provider in Australia is led by Malaysia-born David Teoh, a prominent businessman. If you take a little look at TPG's history, its' earnings has rocketed (and I do mean rocketed), from 100M to nearly 800M in the past 7 years, inclusive of both organic and inorganic growth (from mergers and acquisitions).

Although this says nothing about whether or not it will perform well in Singapore, but it certainly does worry me and probably the other local investors who are vested in local telco stocks to a certain extent. If TPG was able to achieve such phenomenal growth in a similarly competitive industry in Australia, it is somewhat arguable that to a certain extent, significant market share can also be potentially captured by them in Singapore, if they do things right.

(Please note that in Singapore, Telcos;. Singtel, Starhub, M1, provide both mobile and broadband services, this is unlike in Australia, where there are several companies which only provide either)

With all this hype about a 4th telco (note that it was only revealed in December 2016 that TPG won the bid, but they were believed to have a good chance due to their finances), its no wonder that M1's share price has fallen from a high of $2.89 to a low of $1.90 in the past year, whereas Starhub's share price has fallen from $3.97 to $2.73. Singtels share price on the other hand, has fallen from a high of $4.36 to a a low of $3.60. 

I am less worried about the performance of TPG affecting Singtel though, as some of you may already have known, Singtel derives only a small proportion of revenue from Singapore. It is the parent company of Optus in Australia, and has significant investments in other telcos in the region.  Furthermore, I also like the fact that Temasek Holdings currently hold 52.3% of the available shares in Singtel.

Singtel having a strong backer, highly diversified revenue, a good management track record, is evidenced by the relatively smaller fall in share prices as compared to the other locally listed telcos recently, even though the P/E of Singtel and it's dividend yield is significantly greater and smaller respectively, to a significant extent! (I would also like to add that the dividend yield Singtel currently sports is greater than their historical average, excluding special dividends).

This is why at current prices, Singtel is currently on my radar.  I will definitely be looking into buying more Singtel shares if prices start to fall further.


I hope that you have enjoyed reading this post, as much as I did writing it.

Best Regards,
- A 😁