Oceanus

Are the sentiment/facts below still true today? Or is Oceanus slowly recovering? The stock price is 3.2 cents.


Post by javelin in valuebuddies.com


Oceanus is like a sinking black hole for money. It is going into sea cucumber, which is probably even more sensitive to environmental parameters than abalone, and it's going into water treatment. It is flailing around so badly when it should be concentrating on abalone.

That Dr Ng Cher Yew? He's a vet. Who has a history of not really knowing intimately the industries he invests in. He claims to have previously lost money on Internet companies. Now Oceanus is his baby. But he probably doesn't know what the people in the China facilities are doing.

Oceanus said they will employ a scientific method of raising abalone. I wonder - how come for such a big company, they're not doing it already? A scientific method would include well-calculated feeding strategies for a good food conversion ratio, and constant monitoring of environmental parameters (pH, dissolved oxygen, salinity, temperature). Good for their younger abalone, which should be raised in tanks. But they raise their adult abalone in cages in the sea, so nothing much they can do about the environment. It's up to heaven.

I remember reading a Daiwa report on Oceanus by Chris Sanda. Oceanus once reported losses of their abalone. He thinks it might be temperature changes in the water. He's most probably right. Abalone are sensitive to water quality changes, and if the temperature or salinity spike up, they might just die.

As to why there was malnutrition and stunted abalone, I think that since young abalone eat algae (and adult abalone eat seaweed - just dump a kg into the box/cage, and they'll be good for a week or so), the cultures in the phytology lab must've crashed. And there was no backup. This could be due to general inexperience among the workers or just bad management of the farm, which is pretty common in China. In aquaculture, especially hatcheries, algae cultures crash all the time, but there must be backup cultures in the phyto lab.

Also, I think you can't smell the dead abalone since they are all in cages in the sea. Same for fish in net cage culture - some die at the bottom, some float to the top. You won't know unless you pull up the nets and check regularly.

Anyway, Oceanus, I think, is the only aquaculture company listed on SGX. It's a real pity that it's presenting such a bad story for Singaporean investors. Aquaculture is a huge and growing industry with lots of success stories, but they fly under the radar.

Guest 007 wrote: The sell-off by ex-ceo is definitely not over yet. He started with 286mil shares and there's addl share transfer (in the millions) by the present board to get his resignation. You just hope he gets smart enuf to hold the remainding shares and not hurt its status and price! But then, how low can it go at such a price? Definitely not much, unless the business goes bust. Just my personal view only. 

By now, the ex-CEO's selling is over. 100%. the overhang is gone. It's a clean break. However, Oceanus will need time to grow its abalone population and have enough to sell to make some profit. Not so soon, that;s my guess

Around lunchtime tomorrow (Sat), NextInsight will publish an article on the Oceanus AGM. Stay tuned.

OCEANUS GROUP LIMITED is overvalued compared to its Price of $0.03 per share,has below average safety,and is currently rated a SELL.

www.scribd.com/doc/157960815/OCEANUS-GROUP-LIMITED-pdf

In past years, Oceanus reported 'fair value gains' on its abalones. Will it continue to do so? This sort of accounting is fraught with risks, as has been demonstrated in the past. Turns out that the abalones didn't exist, or that the abalones were not as big/mature as originally assumed in the accounts.

Oceanus trading has been suspended after .....another episode of "mortalities".

While Mr Wu remains as the General Manager in charge of the Company’s China operations and
production in the interim of the Board re-composition, he became increasingly un-cooperative
towards the re-constituted Board ever since he was not re-elected as a Director of the Company
at the AGM. The Company was notified on 02 August 2013 and again on 05 August 2013 by the
Head of Production of the occurrence of substantial and abnormal mortalities of abalones at the
Company’s China farms within a very short span of time immediately following the AGM.
The Board has been unable to obtain a verification of the abnormal mortalities which started the
day after the AGM from the Group's finance team. In view of the circumstances leading to
receiving such a report, and the lack of verification of such mortality from the finance team, the
Company decides to request for a trading suspension of the shares of the Company, to ensure
that Shareholders and the public investors are not trading on incomplete set of information.The Board has actively engaged in all necessary investigations to look vigorously into the cause
and current situation of this event.

In addition, the Company is committed to making timely announcements to update shareholders
on the above matter as and when appropriate by the end of August 2013. The Company will seek
to lift the trading suspension as soon as it is appropriate to do so without compromising on the
interests of Shareholders.

infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/OGL_Request_for...cement&FileID=251629