Fraser & Neave (F & N)

[toiletsiao]

not sure if anyone noticed... FNN trading up 3% today ..which a volume of almost 10 times its normal avg vol the past few months

[greengiraffe]

heard from roadside sources that F&N and spinoff FCL have been proposed to be reincluded in some global indices within the next few weeks.

Apparently, F&N and FCL are the only 2 additions within the Singapore basket of components.

Hope to get more info.

[toiletsiao]

heard from roadside sources that F&N and spinoff FCL have been proposed to be reincluded in some global indices within the next few weeks.

Apparently, F&N and FCL are the only 2 additions within the Singapore basket of components.

Hope to get more info.

thats weird.. as the initial reason why F&N was taken off was because of its free float...

I thought F&N's rise could be attributed to 3 factors
1) Thai Beverage to swap shares for F&N
2) Charoen placing out more shares of FNN to increase free float and also to raise cash for his potential United Engineers bid
3) Myanmar Brewery arbitration reasons could be positive

[greengiraffe]

http://ftse.com/tech_notices/2014/Q3/883...E56832E5A9

FTSE MPF Index Series Semi-Annual Review September 2014

4 September 2014

Constituent changes arising from the FTSE MPF Index Series review can be accessed via FTSE MPF Index Series Review September 2014

The changes will be effective after the close of business on Friday, 19 September 2014 (i.e. on Monday, 22 September 2014).


For further information or general enquiries please contact us at info@ftse.com or call:
Client Services in UK: Tel: +44 (0) 20 7866 1810
Client Services in Europe, Middle East & Africa: Tel: +44 (0) 20 7866 1810
Client Services in US: New York: (Domestic) + 1 888 747 FTSE (3873) / (International): +1 212 314 1139
Client Services in Asia Pacific: Tel: +852 2164 3333 or +81 3 3581 2811
Alternatively please visit our website at www.ftse.com

[toiletsiao]

http://ftse.com/tech_notices/2014/Q3/883...E56832E5A9

FTSE MPF Index Series Semi-Annual Review September 2014

4 September 2014

Constituent changes arising from the FTSE MPF Index Series review can be accessed via FTSE MPF Index Series Review September 2014

The changes will be effective after the close of business on Friday, 19 September 2014 (i.e. on Monday, 22 September 2014).


For further information or general enquiries please contact us at info@ftse.com or call:
Client Services in UK: Tel: +44 (0) 20 7866 1810
Client Services in Europe, Middle East & Africa: Tel: +44 (0) 20 7866 1810
Client Services in US: New York: (Domestic) + 1 888 747 FTSE (3873) / (International): +1 212 314 1139
Client Services in Asia Pacific: Tel: +852 2164 3333 or +81 3 3581 2811
Alternatively please visit our website at www.ftse.com

wah nice... yes... F&N and FCL are the onli ones added... can consider adding FCL tmr... its stuck @ 1.70 for the longest time

[greengiraffe]

http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/premium/...p-20141001

Who should we trust - Godfathers or analysts?

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 01, 2014
Credit quality of acquisition-hungry Thai firms may suffer: S&P
BYANITA GABRIEL
anitag@sph.com.sg @AnitaGabrielBT

Deals galore: One major deal was the US$11.2 billion takeover of Fraser & Neave by a Thai billionaire last year. - PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
THE credit quality of Thai companies over the next 12 months could take a hit given their strong appetite for acquisitions and elevated capital spending particularly in the past two years, said Standard & Poor's Rating Services
"Thai companies have been among the most acquisitive in Asean. And most of the large acquisitions over the past two years have been debt-funded," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst, Xavier Jean, in a report which is part of a series on Asean top companies.
Thai conglomerates and their subsidiaries have been actively snapping up assets both domestically and abroad and some of them have stretched their balance sheets in doing so. One major deal which galvanised the mergers and acquisitions space here in Singapore was the US$11.2 billion debt-funded takeover of Fraser & Neave by Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi last year.
According to S&P's, between 2008 and the first quarter of 2014, the acquisitions by 20 Thai firms totalled nearly 600 billion Thai baht (S$23.6 billion) - almost half of total acquisitions by 100 companies which were reviewed by the rating agency over the period.

[kbl]

Good morning everyone.

<not vested><not a call to buy or sell>

“A banker lends you an umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back when it rains”

The humorous definition of a banker is of a man who lends you an umbrella when the sun is shining, but who wants the umbrella back the moment it starts raining. That is, a bank will lend you money when you don’t need it and can easily repay the loan, but won’t lend you the money when you do need it. The saying has been attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, Robert Frost and Philip La Follette.

[greengiraffe]

Thanks for that reminder... u think Godfather so naive meh... if my former banker director in Keppel taught me before, I m pretty sure all Godafthers know that as well...

PUBLISHED APRIL 22, 2014
ASIAN LEADERS
Making all the right deals
Chotipat Bijananda, 'the in-house investment banker' of Thai conglomerate TCC, is helping the group to become a global player, reports FRANCIS KAN

'As the person running the Family Office, I have to make sure that the family does not invest in any asset that is high risk. We make sure that we understand the business we are in.'
- Chotipat Bijananda, adviser to the TCC Group
- ARTHUR LEE
WHEN Chotipat Bijananda was newly married to the daughter of Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, the founder of the Thai conglomerate TCC Group and one of Thailand's richest man, he was approached by his father-in-law to join the family business.
The patriarch was looking to tap his new son-in-law's extensive deal-making experience as a former senior banker with Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan to help grow the business - a sprawling collection of enterprises in the beverages, property, financial services, consumer goods and agricultural sectors. At the centre of this empire is Singapore-listed Thai Beverage, a maker of beer and spirits that include the best-selling Chang Beer.
Mr Chotipat was not quite ready to give up his banking career, but naturally found it difficult to resist the advances of one of the country's most high-profile entrepreneurs, and someone he looked up to personally. His resistance wasn't helped by the fact that he lived in the same building as Mr Charoen and his other children, who all play key roles within the group.
"He kept coming to my floor every day to change my mind. When I was in banking I had freedom, and when you join the family business, you can't resign. You can't even retire," he said with a laugh.
In a sign of how busy things have gotten for Mr Chotipat since he joined TCC some eight years ago, the 51-year-old spoke to The Business Times for this interview at a Changi Airport lounge barely an hour before he was due to board a flight back to Bangkok. And it wasn't his last appointment before takeoff.
What eventually won him over was the chance to work with 69-year-old Mr Charoen, one of the region's shrewdest and most successful businessman, whose rags to richest tale has inspired a generation of Asian entrepreneurs.
"He has been working for himself since he was seven years old, so I've learnt a lot about business from him, like how he protects himself from risk. His concept is to begin with the worst situation," he explained.
He added: "I work closely with the chairman to formulate a strategy to make sure that we make a move in the right direction to make it a success."
He holds the title of adviser to the TCC Group - although he more accurately describes his role as being the company's in-house investment banker, evaluating and working on M&A deals to help the group realise its long-term goal of building a global enterprise. As president of the Southeast Group Co, he also runs the insurance arm of the group, and sits on the boards of various operating subsidiaries.
In a more personal role, he has been entrusted with managing the family's private fortune as head of its Family Office - a private investment platform to manage its considerable wealth.
More recently, he joined the board of Singapore's Fraser & Neave (F&N), which TCC acquired last year after a high-profile tussle for control. Mr Chotipat played a key role in negotiating the deal, which he refers to as the "Singapore transaction".
"We didn't think that the (Lee family) would sell the shares. They had owned it for many years. This is a very old company in Singapore, and it was not a deal that was easy to conclude," he revealed.
He attributes their success in snagging the iconic Singapore firm to "chemistry between buyer and seller". The acquisition also signalled TCC's intention to transform itself into a regional powerhouse by capitalising on synergies between the two groups, as well as the integration of South-east Asia's economies. F&N, which recently celebrated its 130th anniversary, is a regional player in the food and beverage, property, and publishing and printing industries.
After joining TCC, Mr Chotipat has had to adopt a much longer-term outlook when evaluating deals compared to his banking days.
"As a banker you think about the transaction to help the client be successful. But as now I represent the owner of the business, I have to think about value creation in the long term. Any deal I do I have to think about it in the long term. I have to change my mindset to that of an entrepreneur," he explained.
That also means taking a more conservative approach when investing, whether for TCC businesses or the Family Office. He evaluates an investment's risk by first determining the worst case scenario if it were to go sour, and then assessing the quality of the asset.
"I want to make sure the investment is in the right direction, that it is safe. As the person running the Family Office, I have to make sure that the family does not invest in any asset that is high risk. We make sure that we understand the business we are in," he said.
As for Thailand's current political woes and the risks they pose, he believes that the nature of TCC's businesses shields them from the uncertainty to a certain extent. While there has been some impact on the group's consumer and insurance segments - although the market penetration of the latter in Thailand is still low - the core beverage business has weathered the storm very well.
"The economic impact is mainly on the hotel and tourism business, but in the beverage business when people are happy they drink, when they are sad they also drink," he said.
But looking ahead, TCC has plans that stretch far beyond its home market of Thailand. Its strategy following the Singapore acquisition is focused single-mindedly on diversifying abroad.
"We are aiming for international markets, and to diversify more into Europe and the US and Asia. I believe that in some European countries there is a good opportunity to go in at a reasonable price. We want to be a global player," he said.
Such lofty ambitions might justify his heightened workload following his departure from banking and his subsequent entry into TCC. And even if he did want to take a break from work, it's unlikely that Mr Chotipat's illustrious father-in-law would let him.
"I mentioned to him that at 60 I wanted to retire, but he told me he is 70 and still working. The work-load is a lot. When I was working with the bank, I used to play golf every week. Now with the family, I play maybe every quarter," he said, chuckling.

[kbl]

*Godfather so naive meh*-

naive or not is non of my business. I will not put my hard earned $ into a *high debt high gearing* company. A famous phrase by singapore ah long inc - O$P$.

How Big were Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers? What happened to them?

<not vested>

[greengiraffe]

Concern over Asean groups’ debt-fuelled acquisitions
By Jeremy Grant

S&P says 100 groups spent nearly $300bn on deals over a five-year period
What do a chicken farmer, a brewer and an international shipping line have in common? All three are among the largest companies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), a 10-member bloc whose member states boast a combined gross domestic product larger than India’s.
All three are also typical of a new breed of Asean “champion” with increasingly global ambitions. Thailand’s CP Group has a food unit that is one of the world’s biggest producers of chickens – its website even displays a photo of its leadership with UK prime minister David Cameron in Downing Street. In the Philippines, San Miguel group is a diversified business but best known as a globally recognised beer brand. Neptune Orient Lines is among the world’s 10 biggest shipping lines and listed in Singapore.

But all three share one worrying characteristic. Standard & Poor’s thinks they have a debt problem. S&P has spent months crunching the numbers on the 100 biggest companies in Asean and concluded that these three and 23 more are overleveraged.
The rating agency looked at the 100 companies and found that they collectively spent almost $300bn on a debt-fuelled acquisition binge between the end of 2008 and the first quarter of this year, as they expanded beyond their home markets. Only last week, Australia’s antitrust authorities cleared a planned A$1.4bn joint acquisition of Goodman Fielder by Wilmar, one of Asia’s largest agribusinesses, and an affiliate of Indonesia’s Salim group. Similarly, Thai tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi has been in talks with Singapore’s Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp and its insurance arm about buying their stakes in United Engineers, one of Singapore’s oldest construction groups.
There is logic in such expansion. Asean is abuzz with corporate interest in anticipation of a “common market” known as the Asean Economic Community by the end of 2015. Tycoons are flexing their muscles beyond their borders. But they do not have the cash to do it.
The 100 businesses in the S&P study added about S$150bn of debt to their balance sheets because they could finance only half of their $300bn in deals through internal cash flow and cash balances.
Since 2012, loans to fund deals in the region have doubled to $15.4bn, compared with the three years to the end of 2011, according to Dealogic. At the same time, growth in revenue, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, as well as cash flows at the companies analysed by S&P have been flagging for the past two years – in part due to cyclicality in commodities and property.
Some 26 of the 100 – mostly in aviation, shipping, commodity trading and property – have negative free operating cash flows. Most are in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. “Credit quality in Asean has started to erode,” says Xavier Jean, lead author of the report. “We see that trend continuing as long as financial markets enable corporate entities to incur debt at attractive conditions to realise their growth strategies.”
The situation in Thailand is particularly acute. Acquisitions by 20 Thai companies scrutinised by S&P were worth almost half of total $300bn reviewed. The debt of these Thai companies nearly doubled in the period. Financing this gap is likely to get harder once credit gets more expensive, which is expected when the US Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy. Yet, eager to keep shareholders on side, many companies have been maintaining dividends.
The problem for investors trying to make sense of this is that so many conglomerates are privately held, and related party transactions and borrowings by affiliates for the parent mean there is a lot of debt at the private company level that can only be guessed at.
S&P does not suggest a crisis is imminent. But Mr Jean says that while Asean’s largest companies sailed through the 2008 crisis relatively unscathed because of their low debt, their greater leverage now makes them more vulnerable to a global shock or sharply lower growth in China.
There is also “too big to fail” risk. Some of these conglomerates are large in relation to their home countries’ economies. San Miguel’s revenues are about equivalent to about 8 per cent of the gross domestic product of the Philippines. It could take just one episode of financial distress in the poultry, beer or shipping business to cause serious reverberations in the banking system.
Jeremy Grant is the FT’s Singapore Correspondent

http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/premium/...p-20141001

Who should we trust - Godfathers or analysts?

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 01, 2014
Credit quality of acquisition-hungry Thai firms may suffer: S&P
BYANITA GABRIEL
anitag@sph.com.sg @AnitaGabrielBT

Deals galore: One major deal was the US$11.2 billion takeover of Fraser & Neave by a Thai billionaire last year. - PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
THE credit quality of Thai companies over the next 12 months could take a hit given their strong appetite for acquisitions and elevated capital spending particularly in the past two years, said Standard & Poor's Rating Services
"Thai companies have been among the most acquisitive in Asean. And most of the large acquisitions over the past two years have been debt-funded," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst, Xavier Jean, in a report which is part of a series on Asean top companies.
Thai conglomerates and their subsidiaries have been actively snapping up assets both domestically and abroad and some of them have stretched their balance sheets in doing so. One major deal which galvanised the mergers and acquisitions space here in Singapore was the US$11.2 billion debt-funded takeover of Fraser & Neave by Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi last year.
According to S&P's, between 2008 and the first quarter of 2014, the acquisitions by 20 Thai firms totalled nearly 600 billion Thai baht (S$23.6 billion) - almost half of total acquisitions by 100 companies which were reviewed by the rating agency over the period.