AEM HOLDINGS: This company is making a comeback in its business, and has also demonstrated strong shareholder-friendly moves.
All these started happening after it was let off the SGX watchlist on 12 April.
Then it started buying back its shares -- it's done so twice in fairly big amounts, totalling 5 million shares at a cost of about $400,000.
AEM has never done any share buyback for at least the past five years. Suddenly, it looks like a new animal.
On the fundamental side, it reported 1Q12 net earnings of $950,000, which was up 106% year on year if you exclude the one-off writeback gains in 1Q11.
Most interestingly, it declared an interim dividend -- of 0.35 cent a share, which translates into a decent yield of 4.3% based on the recent stock price of 8.1 cents.
Mainboard-listed AEM (market cap: $36 million) had not declared any dividend since FY2006.
This company describes its business as being a solutions provider of equipment systems, precision components and substrate packaging to diverse industries. We are not familiar with this, except we note its close link to the semiconductor industry.
AEM can afford to do pay out dividends. At the end of 1Q, it had cash of $21.7 million and financial liabilities of just $5.7 million.
AEM is a born-again business, having put behind a tainted past.
Its former chairman has been charged of bribery and the case is still before the courts.
Its former CEO has been found guilty of bribery while its former CFO was found guilty of cooking the books to cover up kickbacks paid to AEM's customers.
OXLEY HOLDINGS: Its non-executive director, Eric Low, bought 189,000 shares at 35.2 cents apiece from the open market on 8 June, raising his stake to 416,538,450 shares.
That translated into a 27.97% direct stake in Oxley, a fast-growing property developer.
In his full-time job, Mr Low, 36, is an executive director and CEO of Hafary Holdings, which is a listed distributor of tiles and building materials, and is believed to be the biggest player in a very fragmented industry in Singapore.
Oxley's executive chairman, Ching Chiat Kwong, owned 41.69% directly.
On 12 June, the two men transferred big chunks of their shares to Bullish Investment Pte. Ltd. pursuant to a Concert Parties Agreement as announced on 18 November 2011.
As a result, Bullish Investment holds 759,390,000 shares, or 51% of Oxley.
The bulk of their personal wealth is now inter-twined and tied to Oxley, which has a market cap of S$536 million (based on 36-cent stock price).
Not that it's a bad thing, considering the massive revenue that is coming Oxley's way.
Oxley recently said that as at 6 June 2012, sales from the 20 development projects which it had launched amounted to approximately S$2.0 billion.
Oxley plans to launch another seven development projects by the end of 2012, subject to receipt of approvals from the relevant authorities. Assuming full sales are achieved, these projects are expected to contribute approximately S$1.7 billion to the Group’s revenue over the next five years.
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KEVIN SCULLY: Medium-term target for Oxley is 58-66 cents
HAFARY wins outsized property gain, FORTUNE REIT to acquire 2 HK properties
