ST report today on Hiap Hoe Ltd quoted a remisier as saying the court case involving the Teos is a non-event. Non-event? The remisier is not wrong -- the case doesn't have any financial impact on Hiap Hoe as it is mainly about the Teo Senior suing his 2 sons. In reality, the case is not a non-event. It is a major event for the stock. Suddenly thousands of investos have their eyes opened to Hiap Hoe's "lushious beauty".
BT had an article on Hiap Hoe today saying “the shareholdings of the listed Hiap Hoe entity may become highly fragmented, possibly making it a prime target for a hostile takeover.”
This is far-fetched and added in to the article to spice it up.
Yes, the Teo oldman wants to wind up Hiap Hoe Holdings, the investment holding company. If he is successful, the shares of Hiap Hoe Ltd held by HH Holdings will be distributed to the shareholders of HH Holdings – ie, Teo Senior, his two sons and unnamed parties.
The shareholding of Hiap Hoe Ltd will be far from ‘highly fragmented” as his two sons & unnamed parties own 70.5% of Hiap Hoe Holdings. Teo Senior owns only 29.5%.
Hiap Hoe has inflicted a lot of anguish on many 'value investors' who bought into the stock some 2 or 3 years ago at 40-45 cents and the stock never moved out of the range convincingly. The deep value was there in the business but being illiquid, HH simply refused to budge. Investors had lost patience and only the most stoic believer stayed with the stock for so long. Then in the last 1 or 2 weeks, it's painful for many former shareholders to see the stock rocket -- just like that - from 45 to 60 in a matter of days. The lesson is, a deep value stock can hibernate for a long long time before it awakens, and then it rockets up.