KSH: Professor emerges as substantial shareholder with $11.3 m stake

Dr Paul Yip, who teaches economics at NTU, previously worked for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of China and the Bank of East Asia.
Photo: http://www.ess.org.sg/ Thanks to the two posts above which appeared in the NextInsight forum, we stumbled upon an interesting story.

We Googled "Yip Sau Leung", sent out an email and the good professor confirmed that indeed he had become a substantial shareholder of KSH Holdings.

In a 25 Sept filing to the Singapore Exchange, KSH said that he had bought 290,000 shares of KSH on Sept 25 this year, lifting his stake above the 5% level to 5.06%.

Associate Professor Paul Yip, whose teaches economics at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), now owns 20,960,000 shares worth S$11.3 million (based on the recent closing price of 54 cents).

Prior to joining NTU in 1999, he gained extensive central bank and financial experience with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of China and the Bank of East Asia.

Asked why he thought the shares were attractive, he told NextInsight: "According to market fundamentals such as PE ratio, dividend yield, and the discount between net asset value and share price, the share is substantially undervalued."

He shared his observations regarding the market forces at play: "During my accumulation of the shares, I could feel that there is one big shorter with a few trading accounts (including CIMB) and one big genuine seller in this counter, which should be the main reason for the undervaluation. Market gossip also suggests that the big genuine seller is close to selling most of his shares, and the big shorter would be in trouble by then.

"Other than me, I could also feel that there is another big buyer in the market. Of course, the 'close to selling most' for the big genuine seller would still be a large amount for small investors, albeit not the case for large investors.

"Whatever, patience is most important, as time is on our side. That is, the company result would continue to be good and we will continue to receive good dividends.

KSH (54 cents) trades at a trailing PE of 5.2 X and dividend yield of 5.56%. Its RNAV is estimated to be above $1 by some investors. Chart: Bloomberg
"On the other hand, the shorter has to pay the borrowing cost and the dividend, not to mention that the global market would continue to rise with fluctuations at least in the next few months. In fact, I could feel the big shorter is stuck at the current price level: He already has a heavy paper loss. If he leaves now, it would be a big realized loss.

"The share price will fly up when he covers his short position, as not many shareholders are selling their shares. That is why he is still trying to push the share price down with the hope to create selling panic. However, he has chosen the wrong counter, as most investors in this counter (including the NextInsight forum discussants, the other big buyer and I) are value investors who would only buy more shares when the share price goes down.

He cautioned though: "Of course, the above comments are only based on my judgment during trading, and is not 100% proven correct. However, I do believe it is a good strategy to buy a bit more at the current price and be ready to buy even more in case there is a lower price."


OCBC Investment Research has a target price of 71 cents for KSH Holdings. See: SIIC ENVIRONMENT -- 25 C Target; KSH HOLDINGS -- Buy Call Kept

Recent story: SUMER: My Latest Take On 5 Property Counters