For many years prior to Covid-19, Apollo Food was boring company with declining returns. All that changed post Covid-19 with profits shooting up.
Then came the change in controlling shareholders in Dec 2023. The new controlling party are the people behind the Baskin-Robbins franchise in Malaysia and Singapore.
The market price today at RM 6.70 per share is much higher than the RM 5.80 the new controlling shareholder paid for Apollo.
My valuation of A...

Ajinomoto bottom line over the past 12 years was boosted by 2 land gains that resulted in about the same contribution to the past 12 years' earnings as the operating profits. The land gains are one-off items and moving forward we have to rely just on the operations.
Ajinomoto is a mature company with revenue growing at 6.1 % CAGR over the past 12 years. So you may think that there is not much hope for better results.
But the company relocated to a new pl...

The history of the Group can be traced back to the 1990s when its founders started the road maintenance business. Since then, Protasco has diversified and restructured so that in 2023 it reported its performance under 11 business segments.
Protasco's performance had declined over the past 12 years. Although the Group had tried to diversify into other businesses, the road maintenance business is still the main revenue and profit contributor.
While there is...

As a fundamental investor, you are looking for companies trading at a discount to their value based on the business fundamentals. The starting point in assessing the business fundamentals is looking at the historical performances.
When you apply this approach to NYSE Boise Cascade Company (BCC), you may not get a realistic picture. This is because its performance over the past few years were skewed by extra-ordinary high wood prices.
My ...

Bursa Malaysia NAIM Holdings Bhd  is an integrated player focused on the property development, construction, and oil & gas sectors. Despite its diversification, NAIM's performance over the past 12 years has been poor with declining revenue and volatile, declining PAT.
I attributed its poor performance to the soft Malaysian property and construction sectors as well as the problems it faced with its investment in Dayang, an oilfield services company. I do not expect th...

Ta Ann is a Bursa Malaysia timber cum plantation company.  Since Oct last year, its price had gone from about RM 3.30 per share to as high as RM 4.30 per share. Today it is down to RM 3.80 per share. Does this represent an investment opportunity?
I would consider Ta Ann a wonderful company in the Buffett sense. There were topline and bottom-line growths. It had diversified into the plantation sector delivered a big part of the growth.
The are signs of improving operating e...

Tredegar (NYSE:TG) is a company undergoing a business transition. 11 years ago, it was predominantly a plastic business with an aluminum extrusion business. Today, it is an aluminum extrusion company with a plastic arm.
But its performance since then is nothing to shout about. As can be seen from the chart, over the past 11 years, the contribution from the plastic products businesses has been declining. PAT was very volatile over the past 11 years with 3 y...

At the turn of the century, Mesiniaga delivered double-digits ROE. It was in its heydays with more than 50% dividend payout ratio. Fast forward 20 years and the company is a pale shadow of itself. Its average ROE over the past 3 years was only 5%.
Mesiniaga is an ICT services provider and over the past 20 years the technology landscape had changed. To be fair that company had long ago recognized this and had sought ways to venture into new ICT are...

When Bursa property development MKH ventured into the plantation sector in 2008, little did it know that it was to provide a lifeline to the company a decade latter.
Prior to 2016, MKH property development segment was the key revenue and earnings contributor. But since then, the Malaysian property market began to soften and the contribution from the property development segment began to decline.
At its 2016 peak, the property development and construction segment c...

One the thematic play today is that a some Bursa tech companies will benefit from the US “trade tiff” with China. Notion Vtec has been touted as one such company. Over the past few weeks its market price had jumped more than 4 or 5 times.

If you are investing based on this thematic play, you might have missed the boat already. Its current price of RM 1.68 per share has run ahead of its long term business fundamentals.
One of my concerns was that over the ...