Friday, February 22, 2019

Hyflux Restructuring Plan - A Ruthless Elimination of Retail Investors?

Hyflux has been the talk of the town lately due to its cash flow problems which triggered a restructuring process. This process is getting more and more hot after it announced the details of its restructuring plan. Retail investors now face as much as 90%-97% loss of their investment capital with this plan.

The Hyflux restructuring plan unveiled

For every S$1,000 invested, a holder of Hyflux’s perpetual securities and preference shares will recover S$106.54, or an implied return rate of 10.7%, under the company’s newly announced restructuring proposal. Out of this 10.7%, only 3% is paid in cash and the other in shares of Hyflux. For medium term note holders who are ranked higher on the creditors' list, they will get 24.6% where the cash component is about 13.9%.

Sadly, I am one of those affected as I've invested in the Hyflux 6% cumulative preference shares just 8 months before it was suppose to be redeemed in April 2018. I invested the smallest amount which I possibly could as there were some elements of risk for this but it was a risk I thought I could take betting on the sale of TuasSpring to redeem the perps. After all, Hyflux is a national pride dealing with water, which seems like a strategic asset in Singapore and this was a well known name too. Losing money is painful nonetheless even if it doesn't really affect my financial health as I had diversified my investment portfolio. Net net after writing off this investment, my investments are still in the positive but my returns will drop because of this episode.

Stories of plight of retail investors revealed

The Hyflux saga affected more than 34,000 retail investors, many of them are mom and pop investors who are in old age and probably retired. Many have even invested their hard earned life savings into it. Let me share the following which was posted by Straits Times today:

Madam Loo Leong Hun was 55 years old when she was given a list of corporate bonds in June 2012 by a DBS relationship manager to invest in as she had savings in her POSB account.
"Hyflux preference shares was on the list, and it was strongly recommended as it was a strategic and national asset. The money was to facilitate expansion and build desalination plants. I thought I had invested in a good company... which was our nation's pride," Madam Loo, now 62, told the High Court yesterday. 
One of some 34,000 registered holders of Hyflux perpetual securities and preference shares, Madam Loo was allowed yesterday by Justice Aedit Abdullah to voice her concerns, which he said are "shared by many of you". 
She cited the case of another elderly investor who had invested in 2,500 preference shares. "She is 86, lives alone in a one-room flat and... has mobility problems. She used Hyflux dividends to pay off some of her daily expenses. Now, she has no more earning power,"she said.
Madam Loo is just one of the 34,000 retail investors who are affected. She proposed a plan to waive off the coupon payment for the perpetual and preference shares but hopes that this group of people will not be eliminated from Hyflux books once and for all.

I do not know why Hyflux had to go into such extreme that they have to accept a proposal by SM Investments Pte Ltd to eliminate the retail investors once and for all. Are there any other solutions or maybe they really have no choice? Throughout all the communications sessions which Hyflux had, the message is clear that if this restructuring plan is not voted through, then the company will face liquidation where perpetual and preference shares investors will not get a single cent back.

I do not have the full picture of what is happening behind when Hyflux selected SM Investments Pte Ltd proposal our of the 16 who approached them. Are there really no other better offers? In Hyflux's investor relations website, it stated that Hyflux’s board unanimously agreed that in the circumstances faced by Hyflux, SM Investments Pte Ltd proposal was the best way forward for stakeholders. From a layman point of view, getting 60% of the company for $530 Million and eliminating $1.7 Billion of debt sounds like a good deal. Without the debts, SM Investments Pte Ltd can then really run the business well where they won't face anymore cash flow problems. Of course, this is done at the expense of the retail investors who loss all the hard earned money they have put in.


What happens moving forward?

Hyflux will hold a third round of town hall meetings with holders of its notes, perpetual securities and preferences shares, as well as ordinary shares on Mar 13. The scheme meeting will be held on 5th April where everyone will come together to vote Yes or No for the proposed restructuring plan. 

To pass, the scheme will need to be approved by at least 50 per cent in number and 75 per cent in value of each creditor class. “If one class fails, the scheme fails,” said Hyflux’s legal advisor. I'm not sure if its easy to pass the scheme and whether retail investors will accept the meagre recovery amounts. There is already a petition ongoing, started by some retail investors to appeal to the Singapore government for help. Many of them are saying they will vote No and rather see Hyflux go into liquidation then let them restart by eliminating the debts. All eyes will be on this voting which will probably be a media sensation in Singapore's history. A popular household name with rag to riches stories may be going back to the rags again this time.

I feel sad that some investors are really losing all they have and some even have their whole families having invested in Hyflux together. Though all investments comes with risk and we should manage our risk by not investing everything into one basket, it is very hard for the average man on the street to know what risk means especially when they are already at a certain age. Nobody likes to lose their life savings which is painful to begin with. Will there be hope for these retail investors who are invested heavily in Hyflux? Time will tell what will happen next.


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Monday, February 18, 2019

Far East Hospitality Trust Latest DPU up 3.1%

Far East Hospitality Trust should not be new to readers here as I've blogged about this stock on several occasions. I first wrote about investing in the hospitality industry back in April 2017 in this post. I went on to invest in CDL Htrust and Far East Htrust thereafter. Both have been performing well since then and providing good and stable dividends for the past few years.

Let's focus on Far East Htrust. This company has done well in its latest results which prompted CIMB, OCBC and DBS to write and cover the stock the past few days. Net property income went up 13.9% Q on Q with DPU up 3.1%. With this good set of DPU, dividend yield is now about 6.5% for this stock.

For hospitality stocks, it is important to look at the RevPAR which is the revenue per available room. For Far East Htrust hotels segment, this has gone up 7.5% due to an uptick in overall market demand, the positive impact from the addition of Oasia Hotel Downtown to the portfolio and the recent renovation of Orchard Rendezvous Hotel (formerly known as Orchard Parade Hotel). Average occupancy has also increased from 85.4% to 86.2%.

For its serviced residences segment which has not been performing that well previously, there are also signs of improvements where Revenue Per Available Unit (RevPAU) also increased 7.5% and average occupancy increased from 78.2% to 84.3%. This increase was driven by online bookings from the leisure segment.

Far East Htrust has enjoyed 4 quarters of consecutive DPU growth. It is trading at 0.8x price to book value which represents a discount of 20% to book value. I've invested additional 7000 shares in this hospitality trust at $0.61 back in December 2018. Besides the newly acquired Oasia Hotel Downtown, they also just newly opened Outpost hotel at Sentosa which will further strengthen the DPU growth in the future.

Newly opened outpost hotel Sentosa
I believe Far East Htrust will continue to do well moving forward. In fact, this is just the beginning of its growth story which I've waited 2 years for it to materialise. This stock is now the 2nd largest in my portfolio which is paying good dividends with potential for growth in the near term. Singapore Tourism board also recently released its tourism statistics which shows that visitor arrivals to Singapore has hit an all time high due to the Trump Kim Summit and the release of Hollywood movie, Crazy Rich Asians which was filmed in Singapore. This has put Singapore in a good light and attracted many tourists to come to Singapore for holidays.

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Thursday, February 7, 2019

Free Access - Asia Wealth Virtual Summit 2019

Happy Lunar New Year to all! Chinese new year holidays went pass just like that. I hope all of you had an enjoyable time getting or giving ang baos and visiting your relatives in this new year.

Chinese new year is always associated with wealth and prosperity. While it doesn't happen by chance, some knowledge on how to grow our money will help in this financial journey. Some people pay thousands of dollars just to attend seminars but actually free ones are equally good out there. In this new year, there's this wealth summit where you can learn more about finance and investments. The best thing is you can learn from the comfort of your home and its totally free with no terms and conditions attached.

Honestly, this is the first time I heard of a virtual summit with great speakers including a keynote with legendary investor Jim Rogers who will be sharing where he will be putting his money for investments in 2019. Other speakers include Alvin Chow from Dr Wealth and many other topics such as value investing, trading and economics will be covered.

If you want to learn how to make your money work harder for you this new year, click here to register and get your free access to this virtual summit happening on 23 February 2019.