Sino-environment is in news again, but for the wrong reasons.

Its executive directors have resigned for the second time (yes,they resigned before after their shares were forced-sold due to share pledging,unfortunately they came back).

but this time,looks like its for real after Fuzhou Public Security Bureau cleared them of impropriety. Well, you can never trust these announcements esp. when the China businessman may have “guanxi’ with the bureau.

Looks like the poor sino-environment shareholders will not see their money back, although the company will still be in operation by the China management.

Just a word of caution to those who invested in Sun Jiangrong’s brother business listed in HK, you could be next.

Lucky singapore is not like malaysia in this aspect

马来西亚空军人才济济

往乐观的角度去想，其实，丟了一部战机引擎，没什么大不了。虽然，它已经成为世界十大神秘事件之一；或者，有人说，它是国际十大笑柄之一。

　　能够列入国际十大，原因不管是前者，或是后者，都算是不容易的了。因祸得福，大家要感到光荣才是。

　　至少，能把战机引擎拆下来，证明皇家空军的技术还是不错的；你和我，最多懂得拆汽车的轮胎，连汽车引擎也拆不下来；没有技术是不行的。

　　而且，能够把引擎卖到国际市场，是要有国际市场行销能力的。换成一般人，即使把引擎送给你，你也不知要摆在哪里，只能放在后院让它生锈，或者，卖给废铁佬而已。

　　要行销F-5E战机引擎，就得知道哪一个国家用同一款战机，而又有引擎缺货的情况，这就涉及市场情报能力。况且，引擎是卖到南美洲去，而不是卖给邻国；所以，改天万一和邻国开战，保证对方的战机绝对不是使用我方失窃的引擎。这显示皇家空军的部份人士不但是国际市场行销人才，而且具备做生意的道德。

　　引擎卖了5000万令吉，证明皇家空军是有谈判的人才，才能卖得到好价钱；不错，不错，这种人才值得珍惜。日后倘若国家面对战争威胁，只要派出这种谈判专家，就可以化干戈为玉帛，根本不用打仗。所以，即使抓到主犯，也务必不能撤职，而要列入国防部重要人员，加以保护，他日必有重用之处。

　　塞翁失马，焉知非福。引擎不见了，皇家空军在几个月內就发现了，而且，两年时间就发觉嫌犯；皇家空军的效率极高，可喜可贺。否则，改天敌军攻到，我们的飞行战斗员进入迎战状态，战斗机却无法升空，这时才发觉没有引擎，那才是糟糕。到时，可能连机身都被敌军炸成碎片。

　　而今至少还保留机身，只要补个引擎就行了。这方面，可以找普腾汽车协助，看看它的Campro引擎是否能够适用。如果不行，我们可以兴建F-5E引擎制造厂，借这个机会，进军战斗机制造业。

　　当然，我们要高兴的是，幸亏马来西亚没有核子弹。否则，凭我们军队里头的诸多专才，要偷卖几颗，也是等闲之事。若是卖给卡伊达组织的奥萨马，或者是阿富汗的塔利班，那可就大事不妙，他们肯定把美国炸个稀巴烂，到时，美国不找马来西亚报复才怪
虽然丟了引擎是小事，不过，我倒是好奇，以后还有什么不会丟的？不要连国防部长也被偷掉，那可就大糗了。即日起，军队要打起精神，24小时守护国防部长才是。

Priest wins US$100k in poker

Shoplifting ok at times: Priest

what’s wrong with priest nowadays, they are no different than the atheist. looks like you can’t find salvation in churches these days. it’s better to avoid them like plague so as not to be mislead.

P.S. i am not a christian

Still remember this ad jingle? But the tiger i am talking about is not your usual tiger beer, but Tiger airways which is going IPO.

Tiger airways is doing badly in australia and bleeding cash. They need money to buy more planes so any “intelligent” management will tell you, go find someone to pay for a free lunch. Thus, the IPO.

There are suckers in the world who is willing to buy a dot-com shell, certainly there are also suckers to buy a Tiger IPO.

Don’t say i didn’t warn you.

Here’s an interesting article about aliens Believe it or not, it is definitely more interesting than making money.

http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/9/12/20/n2760711.htm

3 official China media outlets-Xinhua,CCTV and People’s daily have issued a warning on sky-high housing price on the same day. This highlights the concern China’ government shows for the mad housing market.

When will the bubble burst? Your guess is as good as mine. As Newton says: “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people”

Will the Chinese govt take more action to prick the bubble when in fact many of them benefits from it? However, we mustn’t forget that too high a price harms the stability of the government.

Watch out for the succession of the rulers in 2012.Things will get choppy as faction infighting intensifies.

The Tiger Woods saga is becoming more interesting as each day unfolds more secrets of Tiger Woods in private.

You may have wonder what has gossip got to do with investing. Well, as Philip fisher tells in his book “Common stocks,uncommon profits”, scuttlebutt is the best form of getting inside information legally. Certainly, gossip is one way of scuttlebutt.

From another perspective, Tiger Woods can be seen as a blue chip that is hyped up as a growth share but later found to be misleading in its accounts (e.g. Enron,worldcom).

Can Tiger woods still return to the golf scene, never say never, even bankrupt blue chips can come alive. However, sponsors like Gillette,Nike will be wise to drop Tiger for now, at least until the whole thing blows over.

1972 Dunhill/ABC Records DSX-50123

Giorgio Moroder simply does not get enough praise. His early work – clearly an exploration of various sounds, arrangements and genres. Behind every sonic genius is a series of  ‘creative transgressions‘ that evolve into a signature sound – like early painters- Pollack – studying on under Thomas Hart Benton slowly moved from realism to abstraction. Warhol started painting shoes for adverts. Picasso moved from realistic portraiture into cubism. Giorgio Moroder began with exploratory synth-bubblegum pop – evolving into huge orchestral arrangements at 120+ BPM.  So many artists have lifted from Giorgio’s early work – that’s nothing new, but when it’s obvious – it makes for good indie shop salon banter.  Is it obvious that I love this dude?

Good Morning, Afternoon or Evening as it were to you. I’m asking you to watch your step because I’ve been positively drooling. I was at the art supply store the other day and now they have an at home, computerized screen printing machine. I absolutly began to caress the box until a disgruntled young man told me to buy something or get lost. I WANT it my goodness. From what the box was telling me as long as you have a computer and an ink jet printer fabulous posters, cards, clothing items and much more made with beautiful screen printing were all yours. You make your design on the computer or scan it in to the computer and it burns the screen for you (as far as I could tell) and then in thirty minutes you could be squeeging your design on to the product of your choosing. Magic. And not as expensive as you might be thinking. I saw on the internet it anywhere from 230 ish to 330 ish. And the ink sets come in three bottles of color (different combos) and our about 15 to 20 bucks where ever your looking. Sounds good to me. Less hassle and mess then at home screen printing. Of course I’m sure there purist how will be steaming at this but for myself who just wants to crank out random crap on these things its perfect. If you have the cash (which I don’t).

Also I told you guys about that Threadless contest right? Well if you do it and you submit you photos of the cake to Threadless you should let us know so we can oh and ah over your masterpieces.

Happy Trails

Elvis Costello

Is it really “swine flu” as claimed by the authorities? If it is indeed “swine flu”, why aren’t pig farm workers and pigs catching the “swine flu”? Instead, the ones catching the “swine flu” are people who did not come in touch with pigs.

So,maybe we should change the term “swine flu” to “mexican flu”. With its DNA containing flu virus from asia, america, europe regions and a mixture of swine, avian and human flu virus. I suspect that this is a man-made flu. So a case of it being a bio-weapon couldn’t be ruled out.

But, of course the authorities will not admit to it. They would not want to add oil to fire. ” Swine flu” will have to be the scapegoat thus.

The latest news about swine flu outbreak in Mexico and US is disturbing. Some have speculated a possible link to bioweapon.

Check out this link, he is also the one who leaked out the stress test results.

http://turnerradionetwork.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-flu-outbreak-traced-to-missing-us.html

It will be awful for the stock market if the swine flu outbreak is not contained. But with the stock market still just recovering, at least the damage will be contained.

Here is an article depicting the ugly backscene of S-chip IPOs.(it’s a bit long, but very interesting) It just shows that the S-chip bubble was being manipulated to enrich a few at the expense of many. So beware, whenever anyone wants to sell you a delicious story, you may be paying for their free lunch instead.

I received this article from a broker today. The speculation is that the writer is the ex-CEO of Fibrechem and he was referring to the D&H team. I have no idea how “authentic” this email is but i have to say that i am “not surprised” by the contents of what was alleged in the email. It is an interesting read for the “IPO” market. If you want to “read” only the gist of the story, start from “Then my life-changing incident took place.” in red below

THE CONFESSION OF AN S-CHIP CEO

We are victims as well!!! Let me tell you the story. By the time you read this article, it would reached have hundreds of investors, bankers, regulators and journalists. My purpose was to shed some light on the “dark sides” of the business of S-Chips (Chinese companies listed on Singapore Stock Exchange), so as to help prevent more financial losses in the future hurting the ordinary people on the street. From this angle, I wish to redeem myself somewhat………

It all started some 6-7 years ago. My colleagues and I were just a few of the million of entrepreneurs in China struggling to make ends meet at the textile fibre factory that we bought from the government. Some of our older colleagues had laboured for more than 20 years before having the chance to “privatise” the state-owned textile fibre factory in Fujian Province that we have worked for since the day we left school under the Premier Zhu’s “government retreat, private sector advance” scheme, literally at a song. We thought we were going to be very rich very soon. Little we knew that when the local governments of the various counties and villages decided to “retreat”, we end up! with thousands of “privately-owned” textile fibre spinners that competed ever more aggressively. Despite ever rising revenue, margins were disappearing fast……. Sometime, we just wonder why we have worked so hard only to earn next to nothing. Perhaps, our only reward was meant to be “the master of our own destinies”…… But we never really gave up hope…… One day, we shall strike gold…….

1990, the year after the TianAnMen Incident, was really a very difficult year. Many of our clients, the textile manufacturers who were enjoying the initial euphoria of the burgeoning export demand, went belly-up within a short 2 years of economic contraction. However, we pulled through all the vanishing receivables and anguish cashflow-balancing exercises.

By 1993, we were off for the biggest boom ride of our life-time. Our textile fibre business blossomed as China becomes the clothing factory of the world, benefiting not least from the one-off Renminbi devaluation that the Chinese government engineered in 1994. Those were the good old days, where sufficient numbers of our competitors were eliminated by the TianAnMen-induced recession, and the world began to look to China for every piece of garments stretching from the heads to toes.

Money was easy……and we expanded our production capacity as quickly as we could, limited only by the fact that the state-owned banks were not really very keen to lend money to private enterprises like ours, and we just have to borrow from our villagers at some 15% interest rates!!! Nevertheless, we did good business and our leader, the general manager of the factory, could even afford a chaffer-driven Santana. In any case, he was too old to learn new trick, even as simple as driving itself. I was the rising star which had to bide my time, as I was the only person who speaks decent English. I was meant to be the tongue of the company in dealing with the external world. But I am getting impatient. For while the company was booking increasing profits, we never seems to have cash to be distributed as any excess cash generated from the business was never enough to cover the capital expenditure needed to expand the production .

We just owned an ever-growing production business. Unfortunately, good profit margins never last in China. Good demand quickly attracted new entrants into the business as the barrier of entry is relatively low. At the same time, some of the so called “obsolete capacities” came back from the grave and soon, we found ourselves struggling to churn our profit. It was like working for free again……lots of revenues but just no profit!!!

By the middle of 1990’s, we were doing great business selling to our customers in different areas of the coastal areas. In 1995, we suddenly found ourselves having to deal with fast rising cost pressure. However, the market was buoyant enough for us to raise our product prices to pass on the cost increase to our customers. Then, we realized that we must move ahead in term of technology and product offering. Like everyone else around us, we took advantage of the tax concession offered by the government to the so-called joint venture companies. We recycled our “cash” to Hong Kong, set up a “foreign company”, which in turn pumped back the cash to Fujian in the form of a joint venture entity, using the cash to purchase some second-hand German equipment to produce the chemical fibre! s needed in all kinds of fabrics and artificial leathers.

However, luck did not really favour us, at least thus far. Soon, we were told that our economy was experiencing very high inflation rates and soon, the then Premier Zhu Rongji stepped a hard brake on the economy, cutting the bank credit to many state-owned enterprises which were producing things that no consumers wanted. While as private enterprise we did not enjoy the benefit of bank credit, its sudden massive contraction hurt us as bad as the state-owned enterprises who received such reckless loans. We were entangled like the other enterprises in what we called the “triangular debt” problem, where everyone owes the next person money and there was just no money at the source for anyone to get paid…….!!! The situation last for quite sometime as we lived from hands to mouths, sometimes having to send out local thugs to chase for receivable payments from cash-strapped clients. Then again, what else can we do? We had so much or our friends’ and relatives’ money with us investing in all these machinery now that the only road for us is to struggle forwards……turning back would have made us the “outcast” of the village……. By the time the rest of the Asian economies cracked in 1997 amidst the so called Asian Financial Crisis, we were already becoming numb to bad news. I remembered there were days that I wished I had not joined the textile industry, or any industry at all……for making money out of making something is so darn difficult……. I thought I might have just wasted my youth. Somehow, we managed to pull through as a group. The general manager of the factory, who is now getting seriously old, made his sacrifice along the way by selling his Santana in order to keep more mouths fed. We all had no where else to turn to but to continue pushing hard to sell our new product, the chemical fibres.

Finally, by year 2000, the economy began to recover. Our hard work and persistence were also beginning to get paid off handsomely as China had become the centre of all textile, shoe and furniture manufacturing in the world, and all these products required some forms of chemical fibres. We were beginning to rake in cash beginning 2002!

Then my life-changing incident took place.

One fine day in late 2002, I was introduced over the dinner table to one Singapore “Deal-maker” who was to become one of the richest men in his country in the next 5 years. Mr D was still a “relatively” poor deal-maker at that time. Just like many so called “deal-makers” running around China at that time, they hope to make small fees introducing companies to capital, or vice versa. Mr D claimed that he had successfully engineered a number of private equity transactions in China, helping companies with so called “mezzanine” financing to prepare the companies to be listed in stock exc! hanges outside of China. He was fully aware of the psychology of Chinese entrepreneurs and their deep dissatisfaction with the bias of the Chinese government in allowing only state-owned enterprises to list on the local stock exchanges. To us, having a listing status in China is like having acquired the right to print money. One just has to cook up a nice investment story and he could get Chinese investors to subscribe to the right issues of a listed company at any price. It was so much more an elegant way to make some money, rather than to have to toil for a few cents selling chemical fibres……. Mr D went further to claim that he had taken some of the invested companies public in both Hong Kong and Singapore Stock Exchanges and given his investors had made some money, he always have a group of ready-investors willing to back all his “stock picks”. He went on to ask quite a number of detailed questions on the operating conditions of our companies over the dinner, jotted them down carefully on a small note book along the way. Later on, we adjourned up-stair the restaurant for a KTV session. I must admit that I remembered clearly Mr D was a good Chinese song singer, having sung some hot-off-the-chart songs that I heard my niece hummed sometime shortly before the incident. His smooth handling of the KTV girls, which he asked for two concurrently, also showed that he had been around………

The next time I met Mr D was three months later, quite unexpectedly as I had thought he could have decided to give our company a miss given our relative small size. He requested for a factory visit which, after having consulted our old general manager, I accompanied throughout. As usual, no serious business until after dinner and getting slight tipsy after a few drinks forced down by the KTV girls in the evening. I must admit that Mr D is a seasoned operator. He was quick to recognise that I was an impatient young man to take over the operation from my older colleagues. Throughout the entire evening, he was trying to convince me to move the gear one notch faster to accept some private investors into the company, beyond which he was confident to help us to get the company listed in one of the foreign stock exchanges, where everyone will be able to cash out their profit if they so ! chose. I pretended to be sceptical while deep in my heart, I need no convincing as I have known many Fujian entrepreneurs shot to fame and riches, 2 of them by turning large tracts of collective land into vegetable farms and the other bending float glasses he bought from state-owned factories into auto wind-screens and sell them to car manufacturers. I never doubted that one can make a lot of money from car wind-screen, but I could have never imagined striking it rich planting vegetable…….!!!

Mr D and myself both agreed later that we need to convince the other older colleagues of mine to approve such a scheme, and over time, move them aside to allow someone young and dynamic person like myself to be the face of the firm to cater to the likings of the investors, who were mostly English speaking. In the meantime, my task was to convince the existing shareholders to allow a group of Mr D’s friends into the shareholding first, while paying Mr D a “structuring and introduction” fee along the way. The easy part was, as Mr D coached me on how to present to the rest of the shareholders, his fees will not be in “cash” but rather in equivalent value of “shares”. He said that was to assure everyone that he could only make money should he be able to engineer an eventual listing of the company on a stock exchange, after another year of lock-up period for promoter shares aft! er listing. All interests would be aligned, as he put it.

Mr D was indeed an experienced operator. He had anticipated all the concerns of the “older” colleagues of mine, who feared that this was another one of those “leather-bag-company” deal-makers that was trying to make money out of no commitment. So he got through the first “hurdle of trust” after my carefully orchestrated presentation to the “board” of the company.

However, there was still one important issue we could not resolve amongst the board members. The finance manager correctly pointed out that the company indeed, did not need substantial amount of cash at this moment as we were not expanding aggressively anymore. The market place for our products was relatively stable right now with demand and supply growing organically. We will not be able to drive higher sales without sacrificing our margins by cutting prices. In short, we can only grow organically at around 10% ! per annum, which was probably not the most exciting story for the investors. In fact, the board members did not see the need for new capital. However, the idea of getting listed did appeal to them. They too had many friend who had become “paper millionaire” after the companies got listed. They too were looking for the big-pay-off day. So I was tasked to come up with a solution. In other words, there was a “green-light”! I did not expect my luck! Almost immediately after the board meeting, I called Mr D to tell him the outcome, as well as the issues raised. Again, I thought he must have expected the outcomes. As he explained calmly over the phone, the first round investors (which he called angels) will not put in a lot of money so that they would not dilute the existing shareholders very much. These angels are the “connected persons” that will come in with their own money (through Mr D’s personal vehicle) that will help cement the way for some of the well known direct-investment funds to step in at a slightly later stage, which would provide the company with the credibility, other than funding, to convince the stock exchanges to allow the company’s listing, and the subsequent active participation of other institutional investors during the IPO. Mr D went on to explain that the process of getting a Chinese company list! ed was in fact, an art. There were not many people like him that could have the trust of many influential people to conceal their names behind his vehicle to invest in a company, not unless they have been working on other cases together before and having developed deep working relationship. These angels will see the company through the process from getting “restructured” to “listed”, rendering their helps in one way or another through exerting subtle influences on counter-parties, bankers, regulators and other investors. Mr D’s vehicle will participate in the shareholding of the company first, where they will invest up to 5% at book value. In other words, they demand for very cheap entry. Mr D will only take his fees later after having brought in the money from direct investment funds, in larger quantum, in the form of shares of the company at book value before the entry of new capital. He wanted 2% worth of the amount of money he would bring in from the funds in such shares. Subsequently, he went on to explain that this was the modus operandi these days as he could introduce us to the senior executives of the companies who had done business with him for further due diligence on his reputation. In particular, he emphasized that my colleagues should not be worried at all given the fact that it was going to be his and his friends’ money that will be in their hands, rather than the other way round. My older colleagues did find some solace in this argument later on.

As for the use of money, Mr D simply pointed out that we will have 6 month to a year to come up with a new plan on spending the proceed of investment, in the form of new technology and new products. “Aren’t you guys always looking for money to upgrade production machinery to produce new stuff for the market? It the same bunch of the customers anyway……”, so he quipped. So the decision process took a few months, where in between, Mr D sent in some accountants and lawyer to conduct some checks on our operation and accounts. We had nothing to hide then as we had no reason to fake anything. Everything was ours…….then. Subsequently, the “angels” came in, followed by, indeed, a number of reputable direct investment funds a few months down the line. We got a whopping US$20mn to put up a new plant to produce a new type of artificial fibre, the machinery of which was to be imported from Germany. The new product was in fact, attractive to a lot of customers. However, none of them were going to buy a lot of it at the beginning as they were not sure their customers were going to like the new types of yarns made of this new fibres. Business was not as brisk as Mr D had! hoped for…….

On the other hands, Mr D seemed quite keen that we could move forward in our listing process. He began to educate us the process and requirement of the stock exchanges for listing. We paid visit to Hong Kong and Singapore, talking to bankers and exchange officials, attending seminars, as organised by Mr D. We were all psyched up to be a rich millionaire once the company is listed. However, there was just this little problem…..our new products were not accepted by the market as fast as we had wished for. Most of our customers operate under very tight cash flow situation. They only have working capital to provide for the acquisition of raw materials to produce the yarns ordered by their customers. No one was going to spend a lot of money buying our new fibres, prod! uce large quantity of products to purvey them in trade shows, despite they all fed back with good comment on the potential of the new fibres. Very quickly, Mr D came up with an idea. In order to boost our sales numbers fast, he will raise another US$20mn of money from all the direct investment funds in the name of working capital need. As he explained, they often did the same tricks with those companies they listed before. They will raise new capital to produce the new products to sell to customers, encouraging them to help push the new products by offering them more favourable and longer payment terms. With the increased sales and profitability number, he could get the company to list very quickly to get more money to help push for more sales……. He claimed he had done it many times before and it had always worked out. The economy was recovering quickly in 2003, nothing was to going to go terribly wrong. When I asked whether that would be considered “artificially inflating sales number”, he laughed and quipped, with the capital markets on your side, you can engineer self-fulfilling prophesies!” Of course, this article cannot be complete, at this juncture, without citing Mr D’s favourite quotable quote. “Water enough money into any company, even a fake one could become real some day.” He believed so much in this that I thought one day, this could cause his downfall. So we went ahead, sold the new shares at higher valuation to another bunch of investors Mr D arranged. He took another round of commission in the form of shares. We were beginning to admire Mr D. Money flows through his hands like water and he did it so effortlessly.

We were no less impressed by his connection to some of the richest and most influential people, particularly in Singapore. You see, he was viewed as a successful Singapore entrepreneur made good in the vast land of the North. Through diligence and perseverance, he carved a niche for himself identifying promising Chinese companies to groom for listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange which was losing out in race to Hong Kong Stock Exchange as the Chinese! state-owned enterprises were encouraged to list in Hong Kong. Mr D was their hero, directing promising private Chinese enterprises to list in Singapore and along the way, enriching many “angels” and local investment banks in Singapore. I chanced upon many of these angels as well.

There were occasions Mr D would have called me to help arrange for some transport and accommodation in Xiamen for groups for “secret” visitors. They are usually small groups of 4-8 people. I would generally put them in comfortable Buick mini vans, receiving them from the airports, ferrying them to golf courses, restaurants and night clubs. They would usually visit one of two factories invested by Mr D. From my impression, these were the angels behind Mr D, which for obvious reasons, he had to please. There were bankers, lawyers, other deal makers, stock brokers, fund managers and people that do not have a job, simply because they were so rich already. Occasionally, there were ex-CEOs or Chairmen of large government controlled enterprises in Singapore. Once, I even met a supposedly ex-member of parliament in Singapore.

It was obvious to me that Mr D entertained them in separate groups at separate times, taking pains in ensuring that some of them were not aware of the involvement of the others, for some reasons. I was always invited to all these golf and night entertainment events for a simple reason: I speak English and Mr D wanted to be seen as having someone like me to watch over his investment in this part of the world and helped him to tap into different kinds of local relationship. The other Chinese entrepreneurs may not be comfortable in dealing with the whole bunch of English speaking Singaporeans.

One common trait of all these trips was that all these guys from Singapore seemed to love the night clubs in China. The daily programme always ended in some night clubs, where these guys would party till the wee hours, every night they were there. Mr D would sometime, when he was half drunk, tell me that he had again “nailed” some key relationship and one of the travellers in the group would soon be in his “Club”. He would whispered that someone in the group was the senior partner of an investment fund, or someone in another group was connected to the so-and-so in Singapore, or someone was closely associated with the chiefs of some Singapore banks, or someone had “influence” over the listing approval process of the stock exchange, and some would just be some new investors that he was trying to woo to invest in his pre-IPO projects or the shares in the companies that he sponsored the IPOs.

When I asked why they were all so tireless in their nocturnal activities, Mr D laughed, “This is what I call pent-up demand. You know these people cannot even come 100-meter close to any KTV in Singapore because of their social status. The opening up of China is probably the best thing that happened to all these Singaporean men, for they can at least release their “valves” once in a while…….. Do you know how boring Singapore is? I have a permanent KTV room booked up in one of most posh KTV in Singapore, costing me half a mill ion Dollar at the minimum every year. Guess what, the only important guests I have using that rooms are from China!” Watching Mr D in action, I finally understood the true meaning of “club”. He had managed to combine the “social club of friends” and KTV clubs so well that I thought every successful Chinese businessman should learn. And in so many ways, the “club” in Singapore is really not that different from the “club” in China…….. So finally, we got our act together to attempt a listing towards the end of 2003, after much of the financial twisting and engineering to make our company look like a well-funded high-tech textile fibre company on the verge of experiencing explosive sales take-off. In truth, we produced a lot of the new fibre products and literally give them to our customer to produce new fabric for marketing purposes, with the promise that we will not collect money until their products are sold. Nevertheless, we book these as receivables.

To the dismay of Mr D, my older colleagues had insisted on listing the company on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, rather than the Singapore one, where Mr D has greater control on the process. They felt that the company would probably be accorded higher valuation in Hong Kong. Besides, they were not comfortable with Mr D’s influence in Singapore fearing the ultimate loss of the control of their company. Mr D went along grudgingly, helping to smooth the way to facilitate the IPO. We got a small investment bank to underwrite the IPO. The big ones were really not interested in this small piece of business. We went on to file the application to list to Hong Kong Stock Exchange, who was equally high-handed as Hong Kong was flushed with quality large size state-owned enterprises queuing up to list there. Being relatively uninterested in small size listing and more experienced in evaluating the quality of smaller Chinese private enterprises, they were quick to notice the sudden expansion of account receivables on our accounting statements. They followed up with a number of questions with the clear purpose of delaying our listing, probably to see how these receivables will behave given longer period of time. In short, there would be no quick IPO for us.

Mr D was quick to use this delay to his advantage. He hinted to everyone on the company board was that one of the reason for the stock exchange delay was due to the lack of a convincing younger manager helming the company, and that our senior colleague was already too old to project a “dynamic” image to the Exchange and the investors subsequently. He wanted me to be promoted to the CEO position while our existing GM to become the Chairman of the board. With his insistence, my appointment was pushed through the board, which made one of my older colleagues very angry as he was supposed to be the next-in-line in seniority. But heck, he should have spent some time learning English! Mr D, being truly worried about the age of the receivables on our book that would become increasingly dubious as days go by, pushed us to shoot for a Singapore listing where he feel, with his broad relationship will help a smooth IPO. This time round, my older colleagues obliged grudgingly. So we quickly filed an application to list in Singapore. It proceeded relatively smoothly and we went through an initial hearing very quickly. The market was in relatively stable conditions and we felt we could get the IPO proceeds quickly at the turn of the year. With lot of money, like Mr D’s famous words, a fake company can become real……. To be fair, ours was not really a fake company. We were just doing what the Chinese proverb describes: Accelerating the growth of the seedling by pulling it up a little everyday…… To our surprise, we got a letter very soon from the stock exchange questioning us the reason for the failure to disclose to them we had applied to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange earlier. They asked whether we had been rejected previously and on what ground we had been rejected. Just as we wonder how they found out so quickly since one could safely assume due to competitive relationship, these exchanges should not be talking to each other on micro matters like this, Mr D came storming in over-night. “Someone wrote a poison letter to the stock exchange”, so he explained. “Someone who knows the situation very well and who is not very happy with the whole thing”, he concluded. We were fortunate, he went on to exclaim, as he felt that given the Hong Kong Stock Exchange never really rejected our application, he could still salvage the situation using his relationship and influence. While there was no hard evidence, we nevertheless took the precaution of asking for the early retirement of the senior colleague who was passed over for the post of CEO as we suspected him to be the whistle-blower. We made sure he was well compensated in monetary terms as we thought that would sooth his anger, with promises to allocate more of the shares to him so that he would share our desire to see a successful IPO. Then we went on to reply to the stock exchange disclaiming the fact that we were previously rejected, citing our need to access capital markets fast as ours business was expanding rapidly. Hong Kong was just going to be too long a wait for us.

On the other hand, Mr D worked his network and “club of friends” to sooth the nerves of the exchange officials, who were working hard to promote Singapore as the “second board for China” The launch of “second board of China in Shenzhen” hit a snag when the National Peoples’ Congress decided that the Chinese investment public was still too unsophisticated to handle investing in non-State-controlled enterprises that even the Chinese government may not be able to police effectively. So after 3 month, we were informed that we manage to secure the final hearing. Mr D and some young lawyers and accountants spent a few days preparing me to handle the questions “correctly”. I saw the signs of satisfaction on the faces of the officials during the hearing. One of them even went on to comment on the fluency of my English…… Mr D was right again. My Chairman could have fumbled and rumbled on just like any other Chinese CEO during such occasions. They were just the hardworking mulls that built the foundation of the Chinese’s manufacturing might. I belong to the generation that would take the company to soar higher as we understand and speak the language of high-finance, in English! The battle to IPO was hard won. We got listed in 2004 and to our pleasant surprise, some of our customers came back to pay down the receivables and asked for more of our new chemical fibres. By now, China has become the “factory of the World” that churned out all kinds of consumer and industrial products so cheaply that the Americans and the Europeans were so addicted to. The stock markets and physical property markets in the world were becoming buoyant and everyone was beginning to feel wealthy and began to spend more. Our new fibre products found more commercial uses and we bought more machines using the IPO proceeds to produce more products to cater to the booming demand.

Again Mr D was right. Pour more cash into the business and you will get a real company………just like the pig-farmers l! isted on the stock exchange…….as he put it. Sensing potential to make a lot of money out of the good performance of the company and the buoyant market conditions, Mr D descended into town one day and asked me out for a dinner. As usual, we headed to his favourite KTV after dinner. After a few drinks, he leaned over and whispered to me, “Hey, this is your chance to grow really big very fast. The IPO proceed was not enough to fund your growth. Now that we are listed, we can place more shares out to raise more money to accelerate the business expansion to capture more customers before the competitors in China could replicate our capabilities, which always happen in every industry and business in China.” I was reluctant to agree to help sell the idea to my old! er colleagues as their shares were still in lock-up period and I imagined they would hate to see any dilution of their interests further at this juncture. Mr D went on, “I really needed your help as I need to get the shares placed out to some of those who helped us through the difficult times just not too long ago. We need to let them make some money as we are entering a bull market soon. In any case, the issuance of more new shares will give us more power to cement your position as the number one man in your company as we all support you rather than your older colleagues.” As usual, we kind of half forced the issue through the board with my older colleagues grudgingly approved some kind of convertible issue to assuage their fear that the new institutional investor would not be able to sell before they were allowed to.

In Mr D’s effort to consolidate his hold of the board further, a new director from the institutional investor group was appointed to the board. I had known him earlier as one of those that visited our plant before the IPO, when Mr D was just beginning to restructure the company shareholding where this new director was once introduced to me as an “angel” investor. Apparently, they were good friends that “make money together”. By 2005, the Chinese economy had entered into another “boom era” and our business was literally flying, just like any other businesses in China. Profit margins were good while sales expanded quickly, and our share prices rose more than 3 to 4 times from the IPO price. Many of older colleagues sold their shares and retired happily into the sunset in 2006, only to regret to see the shares they sold almost doubled again in 2007. Being the new helmsman, I could not easily sell my shares as it would have been construed as management not having confidence in the business. By then, Mr D had become one of the richest men in Singapore. Leveraging on his experience and the capital he accumulated from earlier successful IPOs he conducted, where in some case he made more than 50 times his capital, he exploited his new reputation as the “preferred deal-maker in Singapore” to the maximum.

His “club” became increasingly larger as many people with money and “influence” joined the “club” to participate in this unprecedented “Chinese feast”. He doled out hot IPO share allocation through investment banks to repay old favour and to cultivate new relationship. Success begets success and money begets money. It all seemed so easy and so natural. Everyone got what they wanted. The Chinese companies got their money to expand their business (which at a later stage, no one is really sure which company really had any business to start with), the entrepreneurs were handsomely rewarded for the risks they undertook, the deal makers got their fees, the angels made their killings, the bankers collected their fees and dished out new loans, the lawyers and accountants recruited more young graduates to cope with the record work volume, the stock exchange got their “new mandate as the second board of the Chinese companies”, the investors got their hot-and-sizzling China concept stocks and above all, the rich and the influential members of the “invisible clubs” were all happily enriching their own pockets……

The reason why Mr D was successful, I realised, was that he always try to help the people who helped him in one way or another to become richer. Despite the fact that I could not sell my shares, I got the help of one of his banker friends to obtain some financing by securing my stake in the company to join in the biggest “Chinese feast in Singapore”. Just like all the Chinese entrepreneurs Mr D helped, I became one of his “angel investors”, taking stakes in promising new companies through his vehicles, got allocated hot IPO shares and reaped substantial gains within short span of time. I too, was becoming not only asset, but also cash rich. I took advantage of the Singapore immigration rule and got myself a per! manent resident by purchasing a property in Singapore. I wanted my son to study in the English school in Singapore and grow up as part of the establishment there. In any case, I would be able to help him join the “club” and he will be taken care of the rest of his life.

As for Mr D, he was purchasing properties in the form of “tracts of land” as he moved to diversify his assets from stock holdings to land holdings, with a sight to become a serious property developer. The Singapore property market was getting sizzling hot by the middle of 2007 and it seemed nothing could go wrong, particularly when 2 casinos were being constructed in an otherwise very conservative society. For myself, Mr D was going to be my role model. I went on to fund entrepreneurs and Chinese companies directly, hoping one day to bring these companies to someone like Mr D, and make more than the Singaporean deal-maker, at least equal…….. Oh, I forgot to mention that the Chinese local stock market went through the roof as well. To take advantage of this, I needed no advice from Mr D. My friends in the local banks helped me secure the capital easily just like what they did for thousands of state-owned enterprise officials. They took the company’s cash as “invisible lien” to lend money to the managers of these companies to punt in the stock markets. The profits of such stock market speculation go directly into the pocket of the managers.

However, only in hindsight after the stock market collapse at the end of 2007 that it became obvious a lot of Chinese companies’ cash in the bank vanished into thin-air alongside the stock market bubbles. Our worlds began to unravel at the end of the third quarter of 2007. By then, the Sub-prime Crisis, as we knew it now, had hit the U.S. economy. We were still busy feasting in the spoilt of the capital market excesses, unaware of the impacts of such a crisis that originated from the housing bubbles in a country so far away. We were blind-sighted by the ease of making money from stock markets and at the peak of the markets in the middle of 2007, we all felt like the “masters of the universe”.

The first sign of trouble amongst the Singapore listed Chinese companies appeared when the share price of a Chinese steel company got sold off aggressively. In good times amidst a vibrant economy, this company presented to the investing community a story of their ability to turn in good profit margins by buying hot-rolled steel coils, coating them in zinc and sell them to car and consumer durable makers. One analyst, whom everyone ignored when the stock prices were rocketing, did question its business model as firstly, such production method is highly inefficient as most modern steel mills produce zinc-coated plates in one continuous process, and secondly, the investing world also knew that the prices of hot-rolled coils became excessively expensive as there was a preponderance of such downstream ! processing plants who got squeezed by the few integrated steel giants who have the capability to smelt iron-ore. Then there was the rumour of the company being privatised by a foreign steel giant seeking easy entry into the China market and its stock prices shot up before the trading of this steel company was suspended one day.

Rumour had it that it had been reporting fake profits, an official report of which the investing community is still awaiting after a few months. It was so obvious an insider job to cash out their position to the retail investors and apparently, the company management was not contactable anymore! By the second half of 2008, I believed many Chinese company CEOs were having tough times struggling to keep their business afloat amidst the most serious and swift crisis in memory as the credit situations around the world got frozen up. Worst, many of us were facing more serious issues in our personal finances. All our investments in stock and property markets were plunging in values amidst the so-called sub-prime crisis. Worse, we could not sell our stocks and properties as the transaction volume of these investments just vanished quickly together with the confidence of the investors globally.

While we busy feasted in the spoilt of the capital market excesses over the last 2 years, we did not realise that we were piling on quite a fair bit of leverages as we secured our investments for more bank loans to attempt to reap more profits, when it all seemed so easy. We never thought we could have any problem of repaying any of our borrowing as we were sitting on a lot of gains on our investment holdings. There was only one easy way out for all the Chinese company CEOs and that was to dip into the honey jugs. We all understood the importance of having our closest allies to be the finance managers of our companies so that any small “problems” could always be ironed out. In this case, I just “borrowed” some cash from the company accounts to fill some of the “margin calls” from the banks outside of China, which financed my “investments” in the stocks listed on Singapore Stock Exchange, as these foreign banks were ruthless in coming to seize the underlying security when the “margin calls” were not met. In some cases, I just pledged more of my personal assets to the foreign banks. I was becoming very stressed by all these happening and was not sleeping well.

Mr D was not having a good time either. He too was suffering from exactly the same problems as we were just emulating his investment styles and leveraging activities. I heard of incidents where he turned to some of other more cash-rich companies that he invested in to “borrow” some cash to bridge through some “margin calls”. He sold down quite a fair bit of his investment holdings to some “friendly hands” in a series of stock placements. At this moment, the goodwill and friendship he built over the years came to his rescue in these moments of “illiquidity” as the market transaction volume just dried up almost completely. However, the market prices of the stock holdings we used to secure our financing continued to drop by the days. Some of our friends and fellow “angels” were selling their holdings……..and may just be in the same kinds of troubles as well. No one trus! ted each others at moments like these. Those that were selling their investments would not pre-warn their “fellow investors” as everyone would rush to sell at the same time! It was a time where everyone was for himself! My anguish did not escape the attention of the “director” on our board that Mr D posted in earlier. He flew over one day and was visibly concerned about the situation of my finances and of course, more importantly, that of the company. He sensed troubles as he knew that I too, had quite a fair bit of personal investments that were vanishing into the thin air in values.

By now, at the end of 2008, I was becoming desperate. Our company was going into the “audit season” and obviously, there was a large cash deficit that we would not be able to explain to the auditor. In the past, we could have just “arranged” for some cash to be credited into the bank account for a brief period to satisfy the auditors’ check. However, there was no such “temporary cash” to be found at any price as the sub-prime crisis had now developed into a full blown credit-crisis around the world. China was not spared in the process. With no where to turn to and the audit dateline closing in, I took the risks to “brief” the director of the true situation and asked for his help. I was surprised that he was not shocked by my confession. He had probably guessed it! In any case, the director asked me to remain calm while he would consult Mr D to seek some kinds of new financing to help bridge this difficult period. He asked that everything remained confidential as the last thing we wanted the world to know was the “missing cash” in the company accounts. H told me that quite a number of the S-chip CEOs were on the same boat and some of the “funds” that used to backed their IPOs have been able to extend some credit directly to them ease the pressure from the foreign banks, secured by again, stock holdings of the CEOs. Little did he know that my assets had almost been entirely secured by all kinds of creditors already!

Then the irreparable damage struck. I had borrowed some money from the local Chinese banks to punt in the local stock markets. The arrangement was such that I had to return such cash to the Chinese banks at the end of the year because they too, were subjected to annual audit. I had carefully maintained sufficient cash in our company accounts, which served as the “collateral to the conscience” of my friends in the Chinese banks. As I began to use them to fund the “margin calls” of the foreign banks and the amounts got further depleted by operation losses of the company amidst the worst economic crisis the world was now facing, my “friends” in the local Chinese banks were not going to take a chance on their own fate. They were definitely not “friends in need”. They simply deduct the amount I owed personally from our company accounts two days before their auditors came in, w! hich was of course, a few days before our company auditors came in. The rest was history……………….

The auditor, which was an international firm, was not going to take a chance with their reputation. They formally informed our board of directors in early 2009. In other words, they were warning the board that the financial statements they were going to publish would be “disastrous” and could cause a serious enquiry by the regulators. I think some insiders proceeded to sell some of their shares before any official announcements were made but most of us were warned not to do anything with our holdings as that would be considered “insider trading”. Of course, all my older colleagues and company directors hated me as a consequence. I was asked to absent myself from all their meetings as they attempted to come up with a solution before the mandated result announcement date stipulated by the Stock Exchange. I was very scared. I had no one to turn to as even Mr D had stopped answering my phone calls. Everyone was trying to distance himself from me and it became obvious that I was going to be the “scapegoat”.

To protect myself, I seek the advice of some lawyers in China who in turn, consulted their friends in Singapore. To my relief, I was advised that should I be found guilty in the Singapore courts for misappropriating company assets, there was no established bilateral treaty as yet for Singapore court to extradite me from China. The China Securities Regulatory Commission, the securities regulator in China, had never once recognised their responsibility to regulate the S-chip companies listed in Singapore. In fact, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange had faced similar issues for decades in their attempt to regulate the P-chips, which were Chinese private enterprises listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange, to no avail. In other words, as long as I refrained from stepping my feet on Singapore soil, nothing could be done to me. In any case, I thought given the hatred I faced from all my older colleagues and friends in the hometown, I should be taking some long overdue holidays. I relocate my family to a Chinese seaside town.

Although I was now an ordinary citizen, I was glad that my wife kept quite a far bit of the money I gave her along the way and that should be enough to last us a life time, at least in China. Through internet, I came to know that the company finally disclosed the incident to the Stock Exchange and the stock was suspended. They appointed an investigator but I was no where to be found. So it would be interesting on how the story could turn out post the investigation report. In fact, a number of S-chips suffered from the same problems and were suspended from trading soon after us. Inevitably, there were cases of over-stated revenues, fathom receivables, missing cash, over-leveraged financial positions of the founding entrepreneur who mortgaged away their own stocks, as well as outright manipulation of stock prices. In many cases, I suspected the irregularities had begun right from the very beginning, before the companies were even listed. Many were not real companies at the first place. My friends in the know told me that a few more had been discovered as suffering from “missing cash” and jokingly commented that the Exchange had to arrange for a smooth sequence of announcements just like the way they schedule result announcements of listed companies. With all these irregularities exposed and more promised to appear, the stock prices of all S-chips have literally collapsed. All my friends and their “club members” must have suffered tremendous losses. Some dealmakers and their syndicate members apparently were facing margin calls on daily basis and some even declared themselves bankrupt. It must have been a very trying period for everyone. However, I did not seem to have much sympathy to all these people. I witnessed how some of them became filthily rich in a short span of time without having to work hard, while other enjoyed a good ride in fortune just because they (or their friends or relatives) were in position of influence.

I was the only one that would be made a “scapegoat” and had to live a life of “exile”, while these guys could still just lick their wounds secretively and continued on with their life. I do not sym! pathize those institutional investors who lost their money as if they did, they were simply either incompetent or someone had benefited personally along the way in having committed their funds’ money in such investments. Curiously, I wonder who will speak on behalf of all the many ordinary people in Singapore who came to believe the investment potential of these S-chip companies after all the beautiful “packaging” the dealmakers and entrepreneurs wrapped around them, and went on to invest their life savings in the S-chips, only to find out one day that all these were worthless! So when dust finally settles one day, we shall all look back and evaluate what had gone wrong and who are to be blamed. I am sure all fingers will be pointing at the Chinese entrepreneurs such as myself, who are usually labelled as “greedy and unscrupulous”.

There is a ring of truth to that accusation and I admit I am guilty. But how about those dealmakers, who taught us how to cook the books? How about those angels, who hid their identities behind some dealmakers and exerted influences to assist them to succeed in their schemes? How about those institutional investors who trifled with the money entrusted to them? How about those intermediaries and professionals who were not vigilant enough to protect the interest of the investing public? I would like to end with a comparison. The Ming Dynasty collapsed only after the General (Wu San Gui) they sent to defend the border against the Manchurians opened the gate voluntarily to allow the Manchurian’s army to come into the Great Wall. General Wu did that probably out of a promise to be made a king later on and be endowed tremendous amount of riches by the Manchurians. Of course, the historians would like to add that he also needed the help of the Manchurians to defeat another general that had taken his favourite concubine. In short, the thieves and robbers are only usually allowed in by the insiders……….

If you have read the story till this part, I am sure you are either a victim or someone who is deeply interested in the development of the S-chips going forward. Please help to forward this email to any many such interested parties as possible. We need to put an end to all these irregularities lest more ordinary people on the street suffer unnecessary losses. In the process, you will help me to partially clear my name…… For I am not the only one to be blamed……………..

Note:

1. Not everything is true in this story that I have just presented in order to protect some friends that still remain friends. In particular, the story before 1995 was inserted in only to give you a perspective of the difficulties that most Chinese entrepreneurs went through, and how they eventually all came to resent the ease and ruthless manner in which people like Mr D made great fortunes leveraging off their hard work.

2. At the same time, I sincerely hope that the investigation report that was pending in the case of my company comes out being at least “fair” to me. Otherwise, the more “real truths” will follow in subsequent emails……… hahahaha, the power of internet……..

Peak oil theorists say that the world’s production of oil is coming to a peak and therefore oil prices should go higher as demand for oil grows as developing countries join in the rat race.

I beg to differ. Peak oil theorists may be right in saying oil production is reaching maturity (i am no expert on that) but if electric cars are widely adopted in the next 10-20 years, the demand for oil will slow down. This implies that long term oil price may need not go much higher.

More and more auto companies are coming up with electric cars. Although still not perfect in design and the charging network yet to be fully constructed, the environmental friendly electric car looks to be the answer to gasoline car.

However, this raises a new problem. Lithium batteries are in vogue for use in electric cars, but half of lithium is found in bolivia and if all the cars convert to electric, there might be not enough lithium to go around, so the price of lithium will be driven sky high. (some lithium mining companies shares have gone sky high too).

But rest assured, the technological prowess and money-making nature of human beings will find a substitute if lithium prices are way too high. To attract people to buy electric cars, the battery price must no be too high. If more and more companies engaged in the production of batteries for cars, it would lower the price of batteries.

Well, i am going too far ahead into the future but i am excited at the prospect of electric cars becoming a dominant feature of tomorrow’s world. Trust the market to prevent global warming.

Reports have surfaced that retail sales on ‘Black Friday” is tame. But they are missing out the real action, ie. online.
Online sales continue to grab market share as they improve service and cut prices.

Gold bugs must love this. gold price is fast approaching US$ 1200/ounce. But is it justified? Jim rogers has just set up a gold fund, John Paulson, David Einhorn have also joined in the hunt. Don’t tell me that they are wrong?

I am a gold skeptic like Buffett.There’s no dividend yield. Presently, it is supported by investment demand. Yes, supply is limited but this investment demand can disappear as fast as it comes.

What if carry trade using dollars ends when FED raises rates high enough? Surely, the gold price will tumble badly. of course, gold price could still go higher as long as Bernanke & co. keeps printing the money. But, will he be want to known as another Greenspan?

Gold jewellers must be worried now. Not just because their business are affected but they have to put in extra effort to prevent robbers stealing their bounty.

I will not be surprised if gold is the colour of 2010.

Martin wolf of FT finally changes his stand. He is now supporting a one-off windfall tax on banking bonus.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f9d3132c-d55b-11de-81ee-00144feabdc0.html

John Thain recently defended the bonus culture of Wall street, in contrast to Lloyd Blankfein who realised the “grapes of wrath” felt by the public. Only a windfall tax suggested by martin wolf will make the likes of john thain wake up to the fact that “times they are changing”.

Goldman apologises for role in crisis

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive, said that the bank regretted taking part in the cheap credit boom that had fuelled the pre-crisis bubble. “We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret,” said Mr Blankfein. “We apologise.”

After benefitting from the immense leverage from the FED bubble and saved by the intervention of the US government, Goldman Sachs finally come to their senses and delivered a belated apology.

They also announced a fund for small businesses as “compensation” for their mischief. Their PR skills are so good that they invited Warren buffett to chair this fund.

Will the master of universe see better days ahead? Warren says Yes and i won’t bet against him considering that US govt is timid in implementing big changes. But, this could change if the “grapes of wrath” spreads further.

1 Samuel 17:47

Martin A. Cisneros

this appears to have nothing to do with investing, but what it depicts is the theme of a bubble forming. A fundamentally strong story turned into a mania.

Note:Though Man U is arch-rival of Liverpool, a team i support, i respect Ferguson for his astute management and rational thought.

MANCHESTER United manager Alex Ferguson is worried escalating transfer fees could signal a business-style financial collapse in the world of soccer.

‘There is an awful lot of expenditure and you say to yourself, ‘Where is it going to end?’,’ Ferguson was quoted as saying in Saturday’s Guardian newspaper.

‘This is exactly what was happening in the business world two years ago. There were warning signs and everyone knew there were, yet they carried on because it was so easy to access loans.

‘In the football world the warning signs are there but nobody seems to be bothering about it. You wonder where it’s going to end and what is going to happen if one major club were to collapse,’ added Ferguson.

The Scot seemed to have in mind clubs like Real Madrid and Manchester City, who spent huge sums on players in the transfer window with the Spanish side paying a world record 80 million pounds (S$182 million) for United winger Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ferguson said vast expenditure does not always equal automatic success.

If you think this is a huge dough left to rise on the forest floor… I’ll let you into a secret.

It isn’t.

If, on the other hand, you’re leaning close to your screen, sloshing that coffee in your hand, and thinking …

“Oh my! Is that – poo?” Then the answer is: Bingo!

In fact, it’s horse dung, lying on a path in the woods. And look – can you see those shiny dung beetles?

I was so excited (I don’t get out much) to see big holes and tunnels in the horse poop, and the dung beetles scuttling around busily. While they go around munching on breakfast, they aerate the tunnels, attract worms to the dung (you can even see one in the  photo peeking its head out of the stuff) and play a very significant part in helping to break down the dung and return it to nature.

You see, I always thought dung beetles lived in Africa and pushed balls of dung up hills, or only appeared as cute supporting characters in Ice Age films. In fact, you can find dung beetles on every continent except Antarctica.

I’ve just discovered that several Swedish dung beetle species are threatened. You know what that means – right? We need more cow pats and horse dung!

Before you poo-poo this post (but not literally, I hope), I’d like to point out that to the Egyptians, several species of dung beetle were sacred and they were often called ‘the sacred scarabs’.

So, next time you step in some poop, give a quick thought to these humble – yet once revered – members of the dung community!

For more appetizing posts, please visit: Pet Pride.

Saw this great trailer/music video for Marvel’s new motion comic for Spider-Woman.  I really dig the song.  I like the idea of motion comics.  What that is is a comic book that is some what animated with voice.  For a limited time you can watch the first episode of Spider-Woman for free here.  For some reason I cannot get the video to embed, so you can click here to see it.

From a blog named “Diary of a singaporean mind”

Aztech, a mid-size electronics manufacturing company listed on the SGX, announced yesterday that it will diversify into property development. The electronics manufacturing sector is a tough one to survive in, margins are always falling and you got to keep on innovating and competing to stay afloat. Investing its funds in some development work to create the next iPod or try to be the next Cisco is always tough because there is no guarantee of success and there are hundreds of Chinese firms waiting to copy their products. Instead of doing the hardwork, Aztech figured it can make some easy money developing property. The Singaporean apetite for property seems insatiable. Aztech gives this reason for entering the property business:Aztech believes there will be long-term sustainable demand for its new business given the projected population increase

Aztech is not the only company that believes this. The others are bookstore chain Popular Holdings, wet market operator Heeton Holdings and jeweller Aspial.

This story just gives me flashback of so many other stories. A month ago I chatted with a barber who was cutting my hair. His barber shop was newly opened and he already had 3 other shops in the eastern part of Singapore. He told me about his exit strategy if he can’t get enough customers for the new shop to overcome the high rent- he could sublet part of the shop or return to shop if he can’t make money. He went on to tell me that making money by cutting hair is hard work – he would have to cut their hair of 400 people per month just to pay the rent. The big easy money is made selling shops. He made more money selling his 1st shop which he bought for $40K and sold for $800K than he made all the heads of hair he ever cut.

So why do all the hardwork of cutting hair, making electronics widgets and designing jewelry when you can just sell property and make money? Won’t the demand and price of property keep going up as the population expands? The money for purchasing residential property ultimately comes from the household income of the family that purchases it. How high prices can go depends on how much loan they are willing to take and their ability to service that loan. Sustainable price increase occurs in tandem with the rise in income. Price of property cannot rise faster than household income in the long run- it is not sustainable because families have to keep piling up more debt and this stops when they can’t service it or when people start defaulting on their loans. Rising property prices also deter foreigners from coming here as they would have to keep cough out a large fraction of their income to pay for rent or service their housing loans.

We all want to be the smart ones owning property that rise in value as the wave of foreign immigrants come to push the prices up to the stratosphere. This is the big easy money that companies like Aztech dream about. ..forget about the hardwork of innovating and manufacturing. This dream has a flip side. Remember Dubai? When its economy weakened and many property loans became negative equity, foreigners simply walked out and left – leaving the banks and real estate companies saddled with billions in bad debts[Link]. Cars, also bought on loan, were abandoned at the airport….credit card bills left unpaid. I think there is an important lesson here for Singapore.

My comments: En-bloc seem to be coming back, with HDB prices on the tear and all the hype about IR, a property bubble is definitely in the making.

No, i am not referring to another new CEO or another dispute with investors of its problematic minibonds.

i am talking about its latest decision to increase the minimum balance of POSB current account (regardless whether it is linked to POSB savings account) from $500 to $1500,anything lower will invite a penalty of $2 per month. That’s snatching Peter to pay paul.

It has suffered criticism when it imposed a minimum balance of 500 in the savings account. Yet, it don’t seem to have learn its lesson. Now,it is doing it in stealth, i have yet to see mainstream media reporting it.

In these days when banks’ earnings are suffering and reputation tarnished, they haven’t forget their motto “if we don’t squeeze the blood out of customers, who will pay our bonus”