ICAP's 6th Annual General Meeting (Part 4)

Finally it came to the voting session to approve those proposed agenda. However, there was an incident happened during the voting process. The company secretary wanted voters to raise their hand with the ‘shareholder card’ given in order to indicate they approve the said agenda. However, we were confused at that moment because we did not receive any ‘shareholder card’ from the organiser. So the voting process was becoming chaos and shareholders inquired why we need to show the ‘shareholder card’ then only we can vote and we were not given with the card. The company secretary explained to us that some shareholders might assign proxies to attend the AGM, and it was possible a shareholder could assign two proxies. In order to limit one shareholder only have 1 vote, so one of the two proxies, who were assigned from the same delegation, can vote if he has the card. Later the company secretary apologised to us that she made a mistake because the rule of voting with the card had been cancelled and thus every shareholders or proxies can vote. I was not quite pleasure to this announcement made by the lady because she should not make this kind of mistake and confuse the shareholders. Some more she was doing a right move initially because there was only one proxy can vote with the delegation of voting right from the shareholder. And now everyone can votes will lead to a situation that two proxies can vote from the same delegation and thus it is unfair to those shareholders who do not assign two proxies to vote. Luckily the shareholders had no different opinion or dispute over the 6 agenda and approved the agenda unanimously or else the voting result can be challenged in the court. I hope this kind of mistake will not repeat in the next AGM.

The second half of the AGM was the presentation of investment portfolio of ICAP by TTB. I divide the presentation into two parts: presentations of the investment portfolio and of the economic outlooks.

The following information is the listed companies that the fund held as at 16-June-2010 (refer to the 2010 annual report):-
1) Parkson Holdings;
2) F & N Holdings;
3) Boustead;
4) Petronas Dagangan;
5) Padini Holdings Bhd;
6) PIE;
7) Suria Capital;
8) Integrax;
9) Tong Herr Resources;
10) Malaysia Smelting Corp;
11) Mieco Chipboard; and
12) Hai-O Enterprise.

TTB also explained to shareholders why the fund disposed the share of the following companies as stated below:-
1) Astro All Asia Network plc;
2) Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad;
3) Lion Diversified Holdings Berhad;
4) Poh Kong Holdings Berhad;
5) Swee Joo Berhad;
6) Telekom Malaysia Berhad; and
7) Hai-O Enterprise.

(to be continued)

ICAP's 6th Annual General Meeting (Part 3)

I still recalled the ICAP’s extraordinary general meeting holding at last year of which the motion of investing overseas was rejected by most of the shareholders. In view of this, the management of ICAP mentioned that the board and fund manager was proposing another plan to invest overseas and they were waiting for the approval from the relevant authorities. However, after so many months, there is no any feedback from the relevant authorities as told by the Board. Though they kept telling us that once they received any new update from the authorities, they will let the shareholders know about the latest update via announcement. Even TTB once almost want to tell the shareholders what is the proposal they are working on hardly to get the authorities approve, as TTB told us his hair growing grayer and grayer during these few months as a result of this issue, but he just stopped telling almost us more due to the confidential of the proposal and probably the company is barred from disclosing any immaterialised proposal to the public.Anyway, TTB said there are still a lot of opportunities in Bursa as the fund is still able to achieve a remarkable return by just investing in Bursa. He pointed out that investing overseas is no rocket science that can guarantee us a higher return. He further provided more evidence to prove that even investing in Bursa can have a return that equal or bit a lot of overseas counters such as DBS, Cheong Kong and even Berkshire Harthaway. The return of the fund of also at least equal or more than a lot of local famous stocks like Genting and Maybank (interesting to know that Maybank’s share price still lower than its pre-Lehman crisis price) of which a lot of investors might not aware of.

The next issue to be discussed is the share price of ICAP is traded in discount to its net asset value (“NAV”). As a shareholder stated that ICAP’s share price has traded in discount since the Lehman crisis. He hoped the management can take the discount seriously and make some effort to close the gap in between share price and NAV. Because his concern was that if he invests ICAP for short term and would like to dispose it in the nearcoming future, he might just liquidate the position in ICAP for a loss. TTB immediately rebuff that he would not take a short term investment decision into consideration to solve the discount issue, as he explained the fund ‘s objective has stated clearly in the IPO prospectus that it is a fund aims to achieve capital appreciation in long-term period. So he will not let any individual short term investors to influence the fund not to comply with its mandate. So I interpreted that TTB just indirectly told the shareholder that it is his own mistake to make losses by investing ICAP due to his short-term tenure, instead he should not have invested into the fund from the beginning.

Some shareholders also proposed that the fund to distribute dividend with a yield rate to be par with the fixed deposit rate or the fund can initiate a share buy back scheme and distribute those treasury shares as share dividend. While I’m quite interesting to the proposal of share buy back, I totally object the distribution of dividend. As I have mentioned in many elsewhere before that the objective of setting up the ICAP fund is to make capital appreciation in long run. So what is the purpose of distributing cash back to shareholers? What is the purpose we invest capital into a fund and later want to take back the cash before it is long enough for the capital to appreciate, and end up need to put the cash back to the fund again?

Don’t forget that ICAP is a close-end (“CE”) fund, it is not like the open-end Unit Trust (“UT”) fund that can issue new units to get fresh proceed if those unit holders re-invest the dividend. For a CE fund, once it distributed cash, it has less proceed to invest and whatever the re-investment decision made by unit holders has nothing to do with the CE fund, and thus the dividend policy greatly reduce the speed to accumulate wealth through the fund and thus defeat the objective of setting up the fund. ICAP’s another objective is to implement value investing strategy, which means it always need to sits with a lot of cash and wait to buy stocks at a price that discount to their valuation at a right time. So after distribute cash back to shareholders, then how the hell ICAP going to buy cheap stocks? Sometimes I just dislike why there are lot of old man buying ICAP shares (as I observed that a lot of aged fellows who attended the AGM and year by year keep asking the fund the pay dividend) and not the young people be the majority shareholders of ICAP? So old people with age retiring mind please leave ICAP alone and pick other dividend stocks instead (for those people who are old but with young mind you are still welcome). And as usual, TTB just took the dividend proposal back to the shareholders that it is up to the shareholders to decide. If in the next AGM the shareholders decide to have dividend to be distributed, the fund will then deviate from its long term value investing objective, I’m sure I’ll be the first one to dispose its shares and other value investors may follow so, then we will see if the price discount issue will be solved or becoming wider.

Regarding the share buy back scheme, TTB mentioned that he will consider to advise the fund to work on the scheme if the market price of ICAP is deeply traded discount to its NAV, for example a 50% discount. Whereby my opinion is not to reject share buy back scheme, but we first need to consider some of its disadvantages and whether could it really solve the discount issue. First, share buy back will reduce the free-float number of ICAP shares and liquidity will reduce subsequently, thus it may not narrow the discount and instead it could make an even wider discount. Second, ICAP may use the cash to invest some potential investments that give a very attractive return which could outperform the discount. Currently the discount of ICAP’s price to its NAV range from a 10% to 19%, so we assume as ICAP could buy back its own shares at an average price of 15% to its NAV, however it can also invest the cash to buy other more potential stocks that achieve a return that higher than 15%, so which one is a better choice?

(to be continued)

ICAP's 6th Annual General Meeting (Part 2)

The shareholders continually stood out to inquire more questions during the agenda session. One of the shareholders asked what is the rational that the fund is holding so much of cash as reported by the annual report. TTB was not pleased that the shareholder was asking this question due to he not reading the annual report of which at page 3 has stated that “…your Fund sold all of them before 15 April 2010 as it wanted to raise its cash holdings It was extremely worried over a full-scale currency and trade war breaking out between the US and China. Such an outbreak would be extremely harmful to the global economy.” He asked the shareholder goes to read the page himself about the reason why the fund is holding cash.


Another shareholder further request TTB should reduce the cash holding at a high level at RM103million, and he wants the fund to utilise the cash efficiently rather sitting it in the fixed deposit account. TTB then said as the US unemployment is still high at around 9% and he is troubled by the US politicians might try to convince the US voters that the high unemployment rate is caused by the Chinese’s manipulation of the yuan currency and thus the threat of trade war due to the friction in between the US and China still exists, especially during the period that the US is going to have a state election at end of this year. Anyhow, TTB mentioned that if the threat of the trade war fades away, he will try to seek opportunities with good bargain prices and invest the excessive cash.


One of the interesting questions being raised by the shareholders was that why the Company hires Harun Bin Halim Rasip (“Harun”), who is the co-chief executive officer of Integrax Berhad (“Integrax”), as the independent non-executive director. As the shareholders are concerned about the conflict of interest in between Integrax and ICAP since ICAP has substantial investment at Integrax. The shareholder further pointed out that to have an Integrax’s CEO in the board of ICAP, it may cause a perception that ICAP could be using insider news of Integrax to trade. For my opinion, conflict of interest happens not only possible that ICAP to take advantage of Integrax by using insider news to trade, it could happen the other way that the related party to Integrax might also try to influence ICAP to invest more into Intregrax. Though TTB and Harun tried to explain that the fund manager’s investment decision would not be affected by the Board of ICAP and they further provided other reasons to justify the conflict of interest is minimal, I was not convinced by the justification. Anyway, it’s a norm that a person can be directors for multiple companies due to Bursa Listing Requirement of which allows him to do so. Hope Bursa can amend such requirement to curb the conflict of interest incident.


Before the agenda session was going to through the voting process, there were 3 more issues being raised by shareholders of which I was also quite interested to. The 3 issues were the update of the approval of the relevant authorities to ICAP’s proposal to invest overseas, the discount of market price to net asset value and the dividend policy.


(to be continue)

'跌就收长期，涨就卖短期'是否可行?

很多人都想投资很简单，认为短期暴涨就做短期，短期暴跌就做中长期(在这我称他们为无原则的投资者)，自以为靠些小聪明就能一举成功，那Warren Buffet等的众股神也不在话下。我想这些投资者已经不知觉已经堕入只注重股价(Price)而不是股值(Value)的想法中。

很多时候这些无原则的投资者因为对价值的无知而高价买进已经高估的股票后其股价下跌就标榜自己为长期投资者，焉不知公司已无价所以股价可以跌至收盘。而当以低价超值买进的股票后却因不知价值，所以当股价上升了一小段就成为短期投资仓促卖出，结果在RM1买入RM2卖出不久后股价升上RM10就暗捶。

通常投资者可能在买进某股票的时候，已经为此股票设定了卖出的止损价(Stop Loss)和卖出的心水价(Target Price)。但由于无原则的投资者认为自己是长中短期皆可，那谁会相信他们会在达到止损价不卖出以做长期或达到心水价后就会短期卖出吗?

很多是时候就是因为没原则，所以这些投资者在到达当初设定价时可能已经受到当时的情况影响而改变注意，结果当初认为下跌了该收长期时因为恐慌而变短期卖，股票暴上升了后该做短期卖却因为贪婪以赚更多而变收长期。那到底这些投资者是要短期还是要长期?

那所谓'跌就收长期，涨就卖短期'说是简单，要实践就不容易了，更多时候这只不过是自欺欺人的说法。这些无原则的投资者通常都因为轻易受到外在因素的影响而犹豫并长长都卖在不适当的时机而遭受损失，典型的被自以为的小聪明所误。

ICAP's 6th Annual General Meeting (Part 1)

Last Saturday (14-Aug-2010), I went together with a friend to attend the icapital.biz Berhad’s 6^th Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) at KLCC Convention Centre. We reached at the said location at 8.30 a.m. After the shareholder registration, we were given a door gift voucher and subsequently we went to a counter to claim the door gift. Later we realised that there was no refreshment being served before the commencement of the AGM, though we were provided with the afternoon lunch voucher anyway, but you would find out later WTF was the lunch then. I think icapital.biz (“ICAP” or “the Company”) is becoming more ‘thrifty’ nowadays despite it is making profit…^_^!!

The AGM started at around 9 a.m. As usual, the chairman of ICAP hold the speaking of the proposal for the 6 agenda to be approved by the shareholders. The chairman and fund manager were tried to reply any inquiries about the agenda and the ICAP’s annual report for year 2010 from shareholders. However, I felt that the quality of the questions asked by shareholders was deteriorating year by year and this year the AGM would have the dumbest Q&A session from shareholders!

An uncle who looks like in his 60’s coming to ask few questions and those questions were so stupid that I didn’t want to hear his voice. Anyway, I still remembered clearly his first questions was related to the sources of the amount of the “Others Expenses” for year 2010. He seemed not happy that the Company was spending RM39,300 on this “Others Expenses”. The fund manager of ICAP, Tan Teng Boo (“fund manager” or “TTB”), patiently replied to the fellow that the “Others Expenses” contain few category of expenses of which he cannot remember the exact detail of the categories. Anyway, he later address this query that the “Others Expenses” do contain advertisement fees, printing fees, the cost of holding the AGM and other small small miscellaneous expenses. I was afraid later the uncle would then further inquired what is the ‘miscellaneous expenses’ and fortunately he didn’t do so or else I would stand out to stop him to waste our time.

The other 2 questions raised by this old uncle were related to those stocks that the fund manager has invested in. For the detail of the question I can’t recall exactly, but I still remember TTB mentioned that he would revert back to the old uncle with the 2 questions during the presentation of investment portfolio of the Company. However the old uncle not satisfied that TTB not addressing his questions and keep raising his voice to emphasise his questions need to be answered immediately. But TTB insist he would only mention those questions that related to the stocks the fund invested during the presentation. The old uncle who felt not happy with that TTB’s reply and grumble all the way during the meeting.

(to be continue)

Start to update the blog again

After stop updating my blog for the last few months as I was busy to prepare to sit for the CFA Level III exam, it's time for me to update my blog after complete the exam and knowing the result few days ago. I would update the blog more frequently whenever I encounter something interesting or post my investment research.

俄数学天才破解庞加莱猜想拒领菲尔兹奖和百万奖金

http://tech.sina.com.cn/d/2010-01-24/14363799212.shtml?from=iasknominate

http://tech.sina.com.cn/d/2006-09-07/09591124093.shtml

历史上，很多科学家都有着古怪的性格，科学家中的数学家，更是有多个人以古怪著称，而“古怪数学家”的典型代表就是来自俄罗斯的佩雷尔曼了。一谈到佩雷尔曼，除了提到他破解了大名鼎鼎的庞加莱猜想，拒绝领取数学界最高荣誉“菲尔兹”奖之外，话题的核心就是他与众不同的性格。最近，一本新出的传记《一个天才和世纪数学突破的故事》将这位有着古怪性格的伟大数学家的隐秘生活摆到人们面前。

　　1

　　抛弃名利

　　拒“菲尔兹”和百万大奖

　　1904年，法国数学家庞加莱做出了一个猜想，用三体空间来帮助理解宇宙的形状。这个猜想是拓朴学发展的关键。2000年，美国一家私人研究机构克莱数学研究所(Clay Mathematics Institute)宣布，为世界七大数学难题悬赏700万大奖。任何人只要解开其中任何一个难题，将获得 100万美元的奖金。“庞加莱猜想”就是这七大难题之一，其他一些难题包括计算机理论界的第一号难题“P Vs. NP”、以杨振宁命名的“杨-米尔斯理论”以及数学领域中最重要的猜想“黎曼假设”等。为了这七大难题，无数科学家费尽一生周折或几十年的光阴，最终选择放弃。人们甚至怀疑，这家研究所送不出哪怕是一分钱。

　　最终，“七大难题攻不破”的咒语被打破了。2002年，一个名叫格利高里·佩雷尔曼(Grigori Perelman)的俄罗斯数学家破解了“庞加莱猜想”。

　　在发表在预印本文献库arXiv.org上的一系列文章中，佩雷尔曼用简明扼要的语言扫除了证明“庞加莱猜想”的最终障碍。他的证明完全行得通，全球数学界震惊了。与此同时，小道消息也在不大的数学圈中传开：这个数学家似乎天生对名声就没有兴趣，只是简单地在网络上发表自己的研究，并不打算正式发表自己的论文。他继续隐居在他圣彼得堡的公寓中，偶尔接受媒体的采访，但几乎不和外界接触。

　　2006年，中国数学家宣布另行解开了庞加莱猜想。不过，一些学者认为他们的结论事实上引用了佩雷尔曼的成果。此事一度引发巨大争议。不过，佩雷尔曼本人并没有对此发言，他显得更封闭了。

　　当年，《科学》杂志以“本年度科学最大突破”之名承认，佩雷尔曼破解了庞加莱猜想，这算是数学界首次承认了他的成就。紧接着，数学界的诺贝尔奖 “菲尔兹” 奖被授予佩雷尔曼，这是国际数学联盟对他的正式肯定。然而，他的举动再次惊动世人———他竟然拒绝领取了这个数学界的诺贝尔奖，理由很简单，“这个奖和我没有关系。如果证据是正确的，每个人都能理解它，那么也不需要什么肯定。”

　　佩雷尔曼同样也拒绝了克莱数学研究所的百万美元奖赏，如果要领取这个奖，他必须将论文发表在相关权威数学期刊上。他始终没有这么做。更令人惊讶的是，不久之后，佩雷尔曼就辞去了他在司捷克洛夫数学研究所的职位，他在辞职信中这么写着：“我对数学厌倦了，我想做不同的事情。”

　　2

　　成长过程

　　“孤僻的数学天才”

　　有人认为，佩雷尔曼个性孤僻，向来不善与人打交道，“隐居”生活并不奇怪；有人认为，佩雷尔曼和研究所发生了矛盾，当他破解了庞加莱猜想后，他的同事们却有意忽视了这个事实；还有人认为，尽管佩雷尔曼破解了世界难题，但他并没有领取“菲尔兹”奖，是因为他极度贫困到拿不出旅费来。而关于佩雷尔曼最新传记中，专注于后苏联时期知识分子的俄罗斯记者格森(Masha Gessen)认为，佩雷尔曼的确从小就是一个安静、孤僻但超级聪明的数学天才，但真正让他与世界自我隔离起来的，还是因为他对完美的极度追求。

　　1966年，佩雷尔曼出生在列宁格勒市(现圣彼得堡)一个普通的犹太知识分子家庭，父亲是电机工程师，也是佩雷尔曼成长过程中重要的角色。他很喜欢用各种逻辑和数学的难题来挑战儿子的智慧。他给了儿子很多书，教会他下象棋，佩雷尔曼的母亲是名数学老师，他的姐姐后来也成为数学家。不过，只有佩雷尔曼从小就展示了惊人的数学才华。14岁时，佩雷尔曼已经成为圣彼得堡数学俱乐部的重要成员。圣彼得堡天才少年数学中心的主任瑞斯金(Serygey Rukshin)开始亲自指导佩雷尔曼的学习。两年后，佩雷尔曼以一个完美的满分获得了当年国际数学奥林比克竞赛的金奖。

　　佩雷尔曼虽然孤僻，但很友善，无论对朋友还是同学，他都很友好。他自己在数学以外也有兴趣，比如他会听歌剧，会算计着生活的开支。

　　16岁时，佩雷尔曼就进入了列宁格勒州立大学学习，很快就被安排到高级几何班中上学。他的表现完全折服了他的老师布莱格(Yuri Burago)：“佩雷尔曼的回答总是正确的，他总是很仔细，很仔细地检查。他并不快，对他来说，速度根本没有关系。数学并非关于速度，是关于深度。”他在接受《纽约客》的采访时说。在休息的时候，佩雷尔曼会玩乒乓球，玩他妈妈教他的小提琴。一旦碰到了一个难题，小佩雷尔曼就会在自己的桌上反复地打一个乒乓球，使劲地搔自己的下巴，低声呻吟直到解开这个问题。

　　3

　　美国访学

　　采蘑菇的数学家

　　佩雷尔曼上大学的时候就不修边幅，指甲长到了弯曲的程度。他只想在一个知名的国家数学所中无拘无束地研究数学，他的梦想实现了。上世纪80年代末，佩雷尔曼以一篇“欧式几何”的论文结束了列宁格勒州立大学的博士项目研究。后来，他进入司捷克洛夫数学研究所，上升为一名闪耀的数学明星。

　　1992年，他受邀到美国的纽约大学和纽约州立大学进行为期一年的访问。在美国，佩雷尔曼依然以古怪的性格和生活习惯出名。他每天都穿同样的一件灯芯绒棕色夹克衫，只吃俄罗斯黑面包、奶酪和发酵奶，指甲长到了几英寸长。“他就像怪僧拉斯普丁，长发飘飘，指甲巨长。”加州大学洛杉矶分校的数学家格林(Robert Greene)形容道。尽管佩雷尔曼很少与人打交道，美国同事们依然喜欢他。佩雷尔曼还将一个俄罗斯的爱好带到了美国：他会骑车到森林中去采蘑菇。

　　佩雷尔曼在美国很重要的一个阶段是后来到普林斯顿大学高级研究中心，进行每周一次的讲座。

　　同时，佩雷尔曼也认识了来自世界各地的重要数学家，比如瑟斯敦(William Thurston)和汉密尔顿(Richard Hamilton)。他们对佩雷尔曼的研究工作产生了很大的影响。

　　随后，佩雷尔曼得到了一个加州大学伯克利分校的奖学金，在一次演讲中，他第一次透露了准备攻破庞加莱猜想的想法。佩雷尔曼在伯克利发表了几篇重要的论文，并参加了1994年的国际数学家大会，很多美国和以色列的大学都看中了这位年轻的当红数学家。然而，一些奇怪的事情发生了，佩雷尔曼拒绝给斯坦福大学的一个职位递交简历，说如果大学熟悉他的工作的话，就不会需要简历。同样的，他也拒绝了欧洲的一些科研机构。

　　1995年，佩雷尔曼离开了美国，回到圣彼得堡。他告诉朋友，自己在美国赚的钱足够他下半生的生活了。他迁回到母亲的公寓中和母亲同住，并一直都和母亲生活在一起。此后的几年中，他就将自己大部分的时间封闭在这个公寓中，他几乎很少和同事联系，也没有和世界上其他数学家沟通。尽管他还能从互联网中获取一些数学界的最新消息，但是他已经完完全全沉浸在自己的研究中———直到2002年突然在网上发表自己的研究成果。这才最终完成了他这一生最大的成就。

　　在俄罗斯，佩雷尔曼的名声已经超越了他的数学成就，他成为很多流言、笑话和漫画中的角色，但是在数学界，他依然是最令人尊敬的数学家之一。如同《纽约时报》评价的，他破解了庞加莱，“是数学发展，也是人类思想发展的里程碑”。

　　本版编译/本报记者 金煜

　　【新知补丁】

　　●庞加莱猜想

　　法国数学家庞加莱1904年提出一个猜想，即在一个三维空间中，假如每条封闭的曲线都能收缩成一点，这个空间一定是一个圆球。简单来说就是：每一个没有破洞的封闭三维物体，都拓扑等价于三维的球面。

　　●菲尔兹奖

　　这是一个在国际数学联盟的国际数学家大会上颁发的奖项。每四年颁奖一次，每次最多四人得奖。得奖者在该年元旦前需不满四十岁。它是据加拿大数学家约翰·查尔斯·菲尔兹的要求设立的。菲尔兹奖被视为数学界的诺贝尔奖。

　　●arXiv

　　由物理学家保罗·金斯巴格在1991年建立的网站，本意在收集物理学的论文预印本，随后括及天文、数学等其他领域。现今的数学家及科学家习惯将其论文先上传至arXiv.org ，再提交予专业的学术期刊。

　　●怪僧拉斯普丁

　　俄国尼古拉二世时的神秘主义者，擅长催眠术。因为对皇储阿列克谢的治疗工作而获得信任，可以自由出入宫廷。拉斯普丁掌握着对皇后的巨大影响力，甚至官员的任命都要先获得他的同意。1916年，他被政敌暗杀。


佩雷尔曼（Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman）才是真正让我感受到一个伟大数学家的风格，对于金钱名利不屑一顾的高尚人格，令我由衷地敬佩他。

他曾说过：“我不需要任何东西。我已经拥有我所希望的一切。”，的确数学就是他的一切。那菲尔兹奖(Fields Prize of mathematics)可不显得太庸俗了么?

他也说过：“我对金钱或名望没有丝毫兴趣。我不希望自己像动物园的动物一样成为一件展品。我并不是数学界的英雄。我没有那么成功，这也就是为什么我不希望任何人看到我。”，这么一句尤显得他是多么的谦虚，恰恰对比了那些试图将这破解'庞加莱猜想'(Poincare conjecture)的功劳占有的卑鄙大陆学者。可能这就是我们华人特爱面子的贼性吧。

现在这'庞加莱猜想'正式改名为"Grigori Perelman's Geometrization Collapsing Theorem for 3-manifolds"可算是给佩雷尔曼的一个肯定吧，好过被那些无耻的大陆学者用以欺名盗世。