SHARES OF boutique property developer Roxy-Pacific have now touched 48 cents, just a whisker from its all-time high of 51.5 cents (which was reached in January 2011).
Not many Singapore-listed companies, let alone property developers, are near their record highs.
Roxy-Pacific stock is buoyed by strong buying by its directors, especially the executive chairman-cum-CEO, Teo Hong Lim (see table above), who now owns a direct stake of 9.86% and a deemed interest of 47.81 %.
Another big buyer is Kian Lam Investment, of which Mr Teo owns more than 20%.
Mr Teo, Kian Lam and several directors, in fact, have been buying Roxy-Pacific shares throughout last year (see ROXY-PACIFIC: Record 3Q profit, robust insider buying).
Several reasons could account for their enthusiasm:
1) At 48 cents currently, the stock is at a 45% discount to its RNAV of 86.87 cents. If the future profits from $600 million of unrecognized revenue from pre-sold projects are taken into account, the RNAV has been estimated to be $1.06.
2) Roxy-Pacific's profit has hit record highs every year since its IPO in 2007.
3). The dividend has also been rising: 0.75 cent a share for FY08, 1 cent for FY09, 1.5 cent for FY10 and 2 cent for FY11.
4). Roxy-Pacific has progress billings of $598.6 million to recognize from 1Q this year through to 2015. Those progress billings are as of Feb 15, and don’t include revenue to be booked for four other projects that Roxy-Pacific will launch by 2Q of this year.
Recent story: ROXY-PACIFIC: After record profit in FY11, $600 m in revenue yet to be recognised
ABR proposes to sell stake in chocolate business for S$100 m cash
FOR MANY years, ABR Holdings has been an illiquid stock and not well-recognised name in the stock market. It has a wholly-owned subsidiary, however, which runs a restaurant chain whose name is instantly recognizable – Swensen’s.
On Feb 10, ABR announced a proposed sale of its interest in a private company, which caused its stock to spring to life.
ABR said it would sell its entire interest in 255,000 shares in Emirada representing 51% of the total issued share capital of Emirada.
Emirada is an investment holding company with just one wholly-owned subsidiary, Focus Network Agencies (Singapore) Pte Ltd, which imports and distributes chocolates, confectionery and food products.
The sale consideration is a whopping S$100.0 million in cash payable in full on completion of the deal.
ABR said it expected to recognise an exceptional gain of $74.6 million on disposal.
The proceeds would be used for future business development and investments. In addition, the Directors intend to propose a special dividend.
Following the announcement, ex-remisier king Peter Lim has rapidly raised his deemed interest by 8.109 million shares -- ie, from a 6.07% stake to 10.03%.
Last year, in September, ABR’s managing director, Ang Yee Lim, had been increasing his stake too, by 1.969 million shares at below 60 cents apiece.
After the disposal of its Emirada stake, ABR’s net tangible assets (NTA) would be 74.46 cents a share (as estimated by ABR assuming the disposal had been completed at end-2010).
The recent stock price of 81 cents exceeds that NTA estimate.
