2011 Dec update

Had a type 1 minimal displace fracture <2mm on my right hand on 25 sep . Could not bend nor straighten my right hand after trying to save my kid from falling off the sofa, went to ttsh a&e. 1week on half cast, 4 weeks on full cast. Was very itchy on my whole hand, and trouble bathing. Worse still it was the most busy part of my work.

Also I had planned a trip to hongkong, as my second son is just a week before 2 year old. With this, air ticket for 1 year old is ard 1/4 the price. We could also ask for extra baby cot in 1 room and did not have to book 2 rooms.
It was busy and sometimes difficult time in HK - had to push the stroller into crowded mrts, and carry the stroller above railings as there were only 1 or 2 exits where we could push the stroller through. 1 unforgettable experience was going up Victoria peak pushing the stroller from the mrt, really shack. Also the taxi driver and some passengers we ask told us the wrong station to get down. Luckily we asked several people to confirm, but nevertheless we went around a few station before finally getting to the right station.
But I simply love the food there. We went to tang dynasty for dinner and enjoyed the desserts. Then went to joy cuisine for dim sum breakfast - it was simply delicious- bird nest egg tart , chao sao boa ( with sause dripping out of the bao after taking a bite ) , hau kau , skew Mai etc.

After the HK trip my friends bought tickets for royal carribean - legends of the sea cruise. Overall it was an enjoyable trip as I enjoyed the variety shows, bingo game and the food was sueprisingly quite good. Besides my family, I also had 2 good friends accompanianship. I and a friend also team up to win the doubles table tennis competition haha..

Investment wise, I sold off sembcorp ind at 3.8 , a bit too early as basically the whole month of oct the stock market rally after 3-4 months of fall. I also sold off my risky stocks - sold off all my lithium stocks ( talison lithium 6% and orc 1% ) as I believe the electric car have too many hurdles before it take off and will need subsidy which prob may not be avail during crisis/ tough times .sold off boustead (cyclical), hour glass (did not like it's ballooning inventory), temp comp (Europe crisis), cerebos (Thailand flooding).

Have reduced my losses to 11%.
What I have left is ard 35%
- people's food (I believe it will improve profit after investing downstream - but may take some time as normally commercial farming takes place after the 4 th cycle where they are currently in the 2nd) . A play on agriculture where real assets are the one which matters. If hog prices goes down, it will benefit PF. If hog prices goes up, it will kill off other competitors. With its dorminant position, it should be well positiioned for growth.
Incidentally, I noticed that I first bought PF in 2003 at around 75 cents as well. for the last 8 years, the price has gone a whole cycle back to the same price. At these last 8 years, it has growth revenue 4 times larger, however profits has gone down because of high hog prices. With its huge investment downstream, I believe this willl rectify this issue and reap rewards in time to come
- Stamford land , where their assets are easily worth double the amount ard $1 as evident on a mou signed with a third party for some of their hotels, and contribution of the sold apartments in 2nd half the the fy due to the recognition of profit for property in Australia)
Will be looking for good profits in Q3 and Q4 (revenue recognition)
- sing holdings, mtq , smrt, popular , lkt.

Also took 55% against the market via HSI, Nasdaq, STOXX 50 Euro
Watch the Italian bond yields.
Gold has gone up straight last 11 years, it is no wonder it is breaking down, if not because of the Europe crisis, I would have shorted it.

Sep update

Continue my hectic schedule where in sept I had to cover innoXX 3 days and had a business review in langkawi. I had to during the weekends conduct house viewing which burnt my weekends.

Unfortunately I believe I just miss the window to sell the property , it was v quiet during July the ghost period and the stock market dived due to the Greek potential default problems.

My maid also went back in aug for HR, and we got a new p maid, who does things vv slow ( take 1 HR to wash dishes), and my young boy (1+) don't want her. He wants us parents to bath, pat him to sleep, wash hands/legs, change clothed etc. This transition was rather difficult.

As expected, my work suffered, and overlook for promotion again (4yrs).

My portfolio has also suffered. Portfolio down 22%, where talison was cut by half within 3 months. I was deliberating cutting loss, but did not do so. In a bear market, risky assets will drop a lot.

I took profit in 2 of best co, Visa (after the debit charge ruling) - although I sort of regretted it . And APB at 29 as it shot up v high from 18.
I cut loss in infineon as I believe cyclically the co had its margins at a v high level.(9.8) after which it slide to 6.9 in a matter of 2 months.

I bought CBI when it was dropping from 40 to 30,in a month and then fr 32 to 28,, I entered in albeit a small amount and contra at 31.

From that on , I was about 60% vested and 40% cash. I invested another 10% SCI 3.28 ( learnt my lesson) the last bear market to buy big caps.

And looking to buy further .I also bought M n Cht for my parents 40%

3 down 2 to go

As of now
1) MR lor ! Finally finished my 10 cycle, so it means no more struggling for my 2.4 km IPPT, which I feel is really taking a toll on my aging body.

2) InXX ½ Done. Finalised SP agreement for InXX, to be completed in 6 months (May to Oct). It is really taking too much of my time. There in the morning, evening. Now I am trying not to go back during weekends.

3) Finally after finding all the documents to explain the disposal of Assets& Liabilities, the officer processed the SO (by 5 months). Yeah !

4)PV ½ Done. I manage to get into PV with some help from my . Will do 1 year reading for young children which I feel is a very good thing to do

Left to sell the house, and complete the S&P by end October (3 more months – still need to get a secretary/maybe moving), and complete the PV by next year (starting 29th July).

Also settled getting our new maid as our current maid wanted to leave. She was a very great help during these 2 years and we could depend on her to take care of the little one, and also cook for both families at the same time. We wanted her to stay another year but her husband wanted her to go back and her mum wanted her to go back (as she felt her husband she work not her). We tried to increase her pay to 470, but to no avail.

Also my car aircon is spoilt. When we went for check up at Mazda center, they discovered that the alternator is spoilt as well (the battery light was on). They tried to charge 1900- 1300 (after discount). So I went to Sin Hwee Motor (they charge me 660, and change my aircon pipe 65).

Damm why doesn’t it just die itself

I have been feeling very frustrated recently, to the point that I do not want to talk to my parents.
Besides this live company Inno, there is another dormant company ASE which has been giving me many headaches recently.

In mid-April, there was an email sent by ACRA to file its annual return by end April. When I checked it, it has not filed for 3 years since 2008.
So what the heck, I went to find out who its Accounts are, and from the last Audit report, the Auditor told me that they are only the Auditor, they are not the secretary nor the Accountant. They just brush me aside and say that just get an accountant next to ACRA to do it in International Plaza.

Later on when I called ACRA, they told me I have to file for 3 years and using XBL(?) system.
Ok then, when I looked at the reports, there is actually not much transactions (mainly FD interest). So I tried to do it myself using excel.

After awhile, I called ACRA again. This time the officer advised me that for every year I filed, I will get a penalty, so why not get it striked off ?
I discuss with my father, and told him to make a offer to AZJPN as we have already inform him of our intentions 1 year ago. The poor market and business sustaining losses since the start of the decade 2004 as more and more companies shift their base to China. Luckily within 1 month they accepted the offer.

I already had the experience of using Inno for the forms for the Transfer of Shares, so I retyped out the paper documents and got all Directors to sign (including my Uncle and Ishi (had to go all the way to Tuas). The difference is one is transfer of shares person & the other a company entity, also the company address is different, therefore I had to rewrite some of the documents to include a company chop, and certify that the company address had changed.

After this I sent the transfer forms to AZJPN by registered mail. In 2-3 weeks I receive them back with the signature and company chop.

So I proceeded to transfer the shares (as my Dad is the secretary) and when to IRAS website to get the e-stamp (Stamp duty).

My father meanwhile had wanted to hold the bank account as there was significant amount of A/R not received yet. However all these A/R were dated 2004 and earlier. I was v angry with my Dad. Here I am trying to clean up all the mess, yet he is still persistent trying to make things difficult as it is. I told me, if this was so important, he should have done it much earlier since 2004/2005. He wanted to get a lawyer to draft a letter to this customers. However first this will impact current business, secondly the accounts may already be paid back (from my experience of Inno where many accounts were not clean), thirdly it is going to be hard to get to get back the money after so long. I convince him that no way am I going to handle his already, I am already stretched to the limit !

Next I went to the bank to withdraw all cash/FD in my Father’s name. Now to close the account, it requires another signature from 2 directors. So I had to go to Bukit Timah to get my Uncle’s signature again, and to the bank another time to get it done.

Finally at end June, I applied for strike off. I thought I had settled another thing but 5 days later, the officer told me to account for all Ass&Lia disposal.

What the heck ! Now I have to hunt who the Accountant is / search through tons of paper to find all of these, and to make it worse even if we write off the Assets (taking a significant losses), we still had to account for the Liabilites.

June update

Continue to remain X busy.

Personal -
1) had to settle my mom's maid (the first one did not want to come last minute, the 2nd Myammese failed the English test 3 times, finally settled on a transfer maid) - Wk2 Tuesday Eve

2) had to settle my Dad's car which gave alot of trouble of late. The power steering hardened and was spoilt, and had to be changed $1100 , many pipes have to be changed as they were leaking oil , timer belt (400) , workmanship (400), altogether ard 3000. The mechanic from Hock Hwa suggested taking out the engine to repair it. And the total bill went up to $4000

3) had to settle my son's parental volunteer in Kong Hwa School. It is extremely competitve now adays with even doing a PV, u need to go for interview. (30 applicants out of 100). After not qualifying for the interview, we had to find many other ways to get inside.


Business -
1) In the process of closing up ASE.
- Changed the ACRA shareholding structure, submitted Estamp (Share Transfer). (Wk1Fri leave)
- Sat AM went to the bank with my Dad, but was told I needed the Company Stamp, Board Resolution (2 sign to close the bank acc), meanwhile got the forms signed and changed signature
- (had to go all the way to my Uncle's house to get the signature for the board resolution (Wk2 Tues Eve)
- Closed the bank account (Wk2 Wed AM leave)
- In the process of setting up the Bank Dividend template
- Next strike off the Company
I can really be a part time corporate secretary

2) Innom
Still wasting lots of time on it.
Wk 1 took 3 half day leave to cover N went he went for KL Business trip
Wk 2 had to struggle the whole week to get the pricelist of rods updated, took WK2 Mon AM leave & Wed AM leave
Next have to get the Plunger Questionaire done
Next FY closing and getting in a sec

Property - after trying to hold garage sale a few weeks, I started to advertise and sell the property. Times are not too good and there were little offers. Will update in another month.

Share -
1) Actually bought some Camdemco as I felt the Uranium crisis was overdone, but cut loss the following Monday when Merkel came out to announce phasing out of Nuclear plants. Was actually very stupid as I still do not have time to do comprehensive study. PE was still v high >20, so should not have gone it yet. Prior to the Japanaese EQ the Uranium sector was overvalued

2)Bought some Infineon as I wanted exposure to the new Smart Grid, EV, High Energy Costs play. It is ard 13 PE with cash about 20% its equity. But I have to becareful of gross margins (assumption that it continues to hold) as now we seem to be on the high of Business Cycle

3)Portfoilio down 10% , need to get rid of unwanted work! and concentrate what I do best

4)EV is slow to pick up, but estimate is 2013 where

The fastest year I have ever had

In May - Finally hit a milestone which was a relief - Manage to sell the company. Finish the 1st Share Transfer/Director Appt.& subsequent Bank A/C opening.

Next -
Company - Send Form C to Acct, Bank in A/C , collect $ from Carb/Skill/ Ikeda , source for carpet, Printer

Buy maid ticket (now her mother doesn't want her to work 1 more year)

Advertise for the house, sell the house

AS Enterprise (Do up the Share Transfer forms from the PB template, got Ishida to sign and Registered Post to Japan)

Staring June I Have to concentrate on my own career & and finally have some time ofr my Investment which has been horrible of late.

FY2011 Q1 Personal

Have been a hectic quarter in 2011.

At first I thought we had a agreement to sell the company to another third party. However the other party kept on dragging its feet.

Finally in the CNY in Feb, I reduce the price by 13% to reflect inventory obsoletion in the Japanese blanks and less some consumption of inventory .

In Jan -busy with preaparing CNY - food for CNY eve and first day ( have to go to Chinatown to buy the foodstuff , market etc) , decorations (Chinatown and Garden) ,
- busy with trying to close the deal

In February - CNY

In March - Reservist 1st week and inventory counting, 2nd week cover InXX while employee went for Penang customer visit, 3rd week - own company 3 years revenue projection alignment meeting

In April - QBR,
RT (manage to pass after 4 weeks),
got new maid for my Mum,
clean up the old house to sell,
AS Enterprise AR filing ( no need to file income tax - FORM C waiver done already ), after consulting ACRA as we have no filed the AR for 4-5 years, if we file now, every year there will be a penalty. If we have the intention to close the company, we can strike off.
InXX - Calculate 10 months Financial

FY2010 flashback

It has been a very emotional , mental and physically draining year for me as Something happened to my dad which I had to take over his company. Effectively I am doing 2 jobs at a time, and my Mum who previously took care of my kids (4 and below baby) had now to take care of my dad, leaving my wife (who luckily can work from home temporarily) and me and at least my maid to take care of my kids. During this tough time, we also had to renovate our new house and pack/unpack our furniture.

The vivid impression that I had was the many evenings after work I had to bring along my 2 kids to look at furniture. One of the night we were looking for lights, and in the Balestier roads, we had to cross the overhead bridge with me carrying the baby up and down the bridge while my wife hold the eldest son hand, and after that I had to carry the pram up and down the bridge as well. It was really tough and no choice as there were no one to take care of my kids.

It is in such incidents where you really see who your true friends, family and relatives are. When I needed help esp from my in-law side to take care of my kids, my in-laws (my FIL did not want my MIL to come from Malaysia to stay with us and leave him alone), they only came sparingingly.

Fast forward this year, my wife needed to go back to work at least twice a week. I approached my Aunt (Dad sister) who is retired to help ( actually there is not much to do, as the maid will take care of the little one (feed/bath/make him sleep), is just to "See head See tail", when my maid eats, or cooks). She actually agreed, but her husband gave so many different excuses (eg, migrane lar, not well , have to cook lunch for her son and to do household chores etc). I got very fedup. If you do not want to help , fine.

Looking at the fireworks on New Year's eve from my new house, I had plenty of emotions running through me. It has been a bad year for me , even my eldest son fell sick (high fever 40C) on the last day of the year.

Looking back last year, there are still a few things that I could smile on
- My youngest son turned one year old
- we moved to a nice condo with very good view
- My family came closer
- I appreciated my wife who supported me during this tough time
- I manage through superhuman efforts to cope with my dad company (reduce A/C by more than 22%), manage to sell the company and lay out the strategic directions for next year

My dad is a very good Sales, however the Accounts were very bad. And at the same time my dad was on retirement mode, therefore Revenue has been fell quite badly in the last 2-3 years (albeit a slight rebound in 2010). The way I see to move the company forward is to explore overseas market (esp in Malaysia). And to turnover the company, it should not be too difficult as I feel that we just need to contact many old customers to increase revenue by 40-50% at least.

Aug 2nd week update

Mon - Wed Balestier/ Geylang to look at lights.
thur evening Designer to confirm design and choose paint
fri evening - confirm defects and went to Audio house (unfortunately closed after we finish our dinner and looking at other shops)
Sat morning- HZ class
afternoon/ evening - Designer (choose lights $1.6k /wallpaper and curtain $4.4k ) spent
Sun morning - visit Dad
afternoon - KIV lights yesterday , visit Lightcraft and then lighting.com.sg to confirm room lights.
evening - went to dad's office.

Update

Tuesday -
Morning (Electricity Inspection)

Wedensday
Morning (Send Maid to Post office to send money)
Evening (went to see lights at Balestier)
Night (Write Business Proposal)

Thursday
(Check for Annual report)

Sat (Send Mum/Bro & Myself for Medical checkup)

Next confirm lawyer letter
Source for buyers

Bathroom + Kitchen accesssories



Tuesday (Choose Lights/ Curtains/ Wallpaper / review design again (balcony/ Master Bdroom (TV console/ Children's bed)

Jan - Mar Investment & Personal Update

Jan - Finally Fixmarket got strike off

2009 is up a paltry 9% compared to the 40-50% gains by most markets.
The main culprit was my biggest holding 40% Celestial which went down 50% (-20% in my portfolio) which unfortunately had to sell at a substantial loss. Celestial did not have $$ to pay off its bond and defaulted. Cashflow & profit grind to a halt and its survival is in the balance.

Divested most of my SMRT (1.87 and 2.16) and CDL (1.78) and move into tech (already make some movement upwards) (Hiap Seng & Broadway, Best World)

For work wise, my business orgnanisation got a new head and everything got restructed, which means I had to work several weekends (burn CNY) for new reports / meetings etc, same as last year. sigh This continued till March

Personally, my 2nd kid Hsien Yi really a handful, making us having little sleep ( wakes every 3 hours) at night.

Dec09 Personal - HYis borned , HZ sick and Fixmarket

Wah a really exhausting 2 Months for myself.

Hsien Yi is borned:)
My second son Hsien Yi is born on 17th November 09 Tuesday, hurray ! :) (37+ week)
It was in the evening time (the day before) when my wife suddenly felt water flowing, and after awhile we realised it is not your usual unable to hold the bladder. At that moment, we were caught unprepared and started to panic. We were actually trying to schedule a surgery next week on the 28th December (another 11 days later). We quickly got my parents here to take care of my elder son (3 yr old) and got the bag (luckily prepared in advance) with my wife's clothes and medical stuff and went straight to the hospital. As I was quite unprepared for a waterbag burst delivery (my first son symptons was actually slight bleeding) , I quickly grap some towels and a plastic sheet from somewhere and placed in the car.

As my wife started contraction, we think it was good to try a natural birth. However though there were contraction, there were no dilation, and there was a risk that the placenta may drop first , endangering the baby in the process, thus our gynae advised us for a cesarean surgery. The gynae came just before midnight and started the operation. And quite a coincidence, it is the Chinese Chu Yi. According to the Chinese it is a Da Ri Zhi (Big day) and only people with the ming (fortune) - you can be very successful and be the other opposite.

At 12am, Hsien Yi is borned, weighing 3.41 Kg and measuring 51 cm long with a very big head (39cm) - 90th percentile. It seems that my kids have something with being big headed haha :)

Hsien Yi is extremely alert, with his eyes opening on the next day already. (unlike my first one who only opened his eyes 1-2 days after being discharged in hospital)

The next month was a hectic month for us. The nanny who came is very unprofessional, she has an attitude problem ( I asked her to wake up at a certain timing to feed my son, while she say if she can wake up she will do so) - it really pissed me off. She also do some things which really got on my nerve, for instance washing vegetable in the basin ( extremely dirty !) , and washed ginger in the pail that I put my clothes in ! During the day time, she will also chit chat with my maid, sometimes oblivion to my wife asking for help (still recovering). It was a fustrating month for us. And although we though of changing the nanny, we viewed it week by week and thought that she will improve and we tried to close 1 eye. Well so we did not change and endured the 4 weeks. Also although the nanny takes care at night, when our son cries, we also wake up, and when he cries continously we as parents will also wake up in the night to see what is wrong.

The worst thing was during that time, my old neck problem came back. It pains after siting for some time. This problem came because I was too tired taking care of my wife and eldest son, such that when I fell asleep and slept in an awkward postion trigering the neck pain ( and I though it went away after not feeling the effects for more than the last 6 months)

The pain finally subsided after 4 weeks and luckily just in time after the nanny left. My this son is really difficult to take care. He drinks every 3 hours, meaning to say after 12 midnight, we have to feed 3am, 6am. And usually it takes about 45min to feed him, and burp him. Also, he has a habit of vomitting out milk quite easily. And he seems very alert and after awhile he will get very agitated and seems frightened (big eyes and panting heavily and cries if not pacified).

The first day the gynae left, I took the night shift, and after feeding him at 11am, I tried with no avail to get him to sleep. In the process I gave him another 2 bottles of additional feed before the 2am as he seems agitated and will only cool down after drinking the milk. The problem now on hindsight is that probably he is getting used to me and I am still inexperienced. ( everytime he sleeps, and when I put him down he gets up again and refuses to sleep. He then gets frightend and agitated and the cycle repeats itslef). That nightmare finally came to a rest when my wife woke up at around 3 am and I asked her for the pacifier. That really solved my problem partially.
Partially because we found out the next few days is that although he gets pacified, when the pacifier comes out he gets agitated again.

I have been taking night shift so that my wife can recover from her maternity. I have taken leave/scheduled leave which will last till next year. (2 weeks after HY 1 month) . Every night I sleep about 4-5 hours or less. 1 hr b/w 9pm-12am, 1-2 hr b/w 12am-3am, 1-2 hr b/w 3am -6am, and 2 hr fr 6am-9am. Sometimes he doesn't sleep from 12-3am, really exhausted. And this has been going on for the last 14 days...really shack.

Okay, lets see and hope this kid get better after the 2nd month. My eldest son is coping well with the new additional member. of course there is the ocassionally asking for attention and throwing tantrums , but he is happy with the new addition the the family.

Hsien Zheng falls sick - gastric intestinal
Also, just the day after the nanny left, my eldest son fell ill (Thu/Fri). He vomitted in the middle of the night 2-3 times and had diahorrea, resulting in everybody not having enough rest. The next day I went to the clinic downstairs. At first, his vomitting stopped on Friday, but his diahorrea still perisisted. On Sunday when my in-laws came, HZ went wih my wife to Orchard road, and his vomitting came back. After a short rest, he seems to have recovered and wanted to follow his cousins to Mount Faber Jewel box to see the snow show. After coming back from there, he started vomitting again, and this time whatever we gave him (water, milk (soya bean)) he keep on vomitting. I quickly decided to send my son to the hospital (Mount E), as I am afraid it was something serious like food poisoning. At the hospital, the doctor (specialising in gastronomy- stomache) examined him and told us that his stomach is quite bloated (alot of air) and still do not seem to be very dehydrated. He gave us 2 options, either leave him at the hospital for drip or take medicine recommended by him. As he seems not that dehydrated, the doctor recommended the latter, as drip can be traumatic/painful even for an adult. And so, he was prescribed - Debridat ( for stomach pain), and continued with his lacteol fort sachet (antidiarrheal drug) , dramamine used for preventing vomitting.

Lacteol Fort - Lactic acid producing organisms ; Belongs to the class of antidiarrheal microorganisms. Used in the treatment of diarrhea, for patients suffering from the chronic intestinal disease known as irritable bowel syndrome. Patients show symptons of abdominal pain, bloating or gas, daily number of stools, etc


Fixmarket -Urghh ..I got a letter from ACRA to submit AGM, which I have to hold AGM withinin every calendar year . I am in the process of striking of the company which I applied in August, and unfortunately I believe the strike off process may run till January (5 months) the next calender year. After reading the website, I came across Section 175, Application for Extension of Time to Hold Annual General Meeting. Since I do not know when the strike of will end, I applied for 3 months (50 dollars per month). After reading further I saw Section 201, Extension of Time to Lay Accounts at Annual General Meeting under Section 201 of the Companies Act- the account must be laid not more than 6 months before the date of the AGM. Really pek chek and according to ACRA I have to sought legal advice to see whether I need to apply Section 201 as their ACRA officers are not empowered to give such advice. What the heck , I also applied 3 months extension. So I paid an additional 300 to the stupid cost. Vomit blood. I really hope to close this shit this year (or early next year).

Sep Update

Have been rather busy
June -
1) took my son to the zoo
2) going over to KL

July - Aug
1) climatised my son to his new school -Pat's schoolhouse

2) Repaired 2 of my lights, 1 is the one in the kitchen, tha ballast was spoilt. After tinkiering for a while, I finally gave up and got the boss selling lights to come over to my flat to fix it. apparently it needed to cut 3 wires, and then connect it back. It came to about 40-50, and I think it is well spent as it was a very tedious job looking up for almost an hour to fix it.

3) Called the plumber to fix up my kitchen basin ...its leaking. spent about 200 to glue up the basin, change the tap...it came loose and the pipe below.

4) Got the confinement lady for my wife's confinement

5) Look around maid agencies and selected a maid...coming in a month's time. Smaller agencies are more personal then big agenices like Nation.

6) Got new furnitures...went furniture shopping/IKEA/Furniture mall/ and got a new cupboard so that we can store our newborn clothes, new shoe rack so that we can transfer our first boy's toys into the cupboard...now it is quite unsightly around. Sold our room's TV as it is the CRT and taking up too much space. Had also to move our furniture around and rearrnging getting our first boy's older clothes.

5) Manage to finally solved my Fixmarket problem !!!! I called Emmy to help me strike off the company. We compromised that I will settle Mr. Jiang's debt 2 years of accounting fee and she will help me do the strike off - full financial statements and audit for free.
So I paid up 2700! due mainly to my negligance....but bo pian...take it as tution fees
I went to IRAs to ensure that Fixmarket had no outstanding accrual to the government agencies and then went to ACRA to confirm that I can strike off the company w/o major shareholder approval. In the ACRA website, I meet all conditions to strike off except w/o major shareholder approval as Mr. Jiang is nowhere to be found.
According to Ms Lee at ACRA, I have to hold evidence that I have tried all means to contact him, and I can proceed ahead to click on the condiditon all major shareholder approve of the strike off.
This is a fantastic relieve after so many years (almost 9 years !) of trouble. It will take about 5-6 months to proceed.

Price cuts draw buyers to 3 condo relaunches

May 19, 2009
Price cuts draw buyers to 3 condo relaunches
By Joyce Teo

Three prime condominium projects that struggled to generate interest last year saw a surge of buyer activity over the weekend after developers cut their prices.

The freehold 19-storey Parc Centennial in Kampong Java Road - where all 51 units are served by private lifts - sold 32 units at $1,115 per square foot (psf) to $1,233 psf, or from $1.27 million to $1.93 million. This price level is about 20 per cent lower than last year's $1,450 psf, and the interest absorption scheme is included.

Developer EL Development sold only six units in April and May last year when the project was originally released for sale. And at a private preview in March this year, it sold a 2,486 sq ft penthouse unit for $1,005 psf.

It held a preview this past weekend and has now sold all the two-bedroom units, which start from 1,098 sq ft. The three-bedders increase in size to 1,572 sq ft.

Managing director Lim Yew Soon said he had raised the prices of the remaining 12 three-bedroom units at Parc Centennial by 2 per cent.

Over at the 302-unit Martin Place Residences in River Valley, a soft launch over the weekend saw sales of 80 units at $1,450 psf on average, out of a total of 100 units launched.

Developer Frasers Centrepoint Homes said the 'attractive pricing' drew buyers. It released units priced from $1,260 psf to $1,700 psf, compared with the initial 28 units sold at $1,700 psf to $2,000 psf last year.

Singaporeans made up 62 per cent of the buyers at Martin Place Residences, with the rest being permanent residents and foreigners.

Earlier, CapitaLand had reported strong weekend sales at its 173-unit The Wharf Residence. About 95 per cent of the buyers chose not to take up the stamp duty waiver and interest absorption, preferring a straight 8 per cent price cut, it said yesterday.

Prices started at just below $1,000 psf for units with private enclosed space and many of the weekend deals were done at less than $1,300 psf, industry sources said.

Attractive price cuts, coupled with the recent stock market rally and a fear of losing out, are some of the key factors spurring buyer interest, experts said.

Compared with the situation late last year, buyers are more confident and developers seem to be taking advantage of improving sentiment to relaunch projects at attractive prices, said PropNex chief executive Mohamed Ismail.

.............Coincidentally, I went over the weekend to enrol my son into Meyer Road Pat School House. It costs about above 700+ for a half day course. The other school I saw was Modern Montesorri which cost about 600+. PS has a ratio of 1:7 while MM a ratio of 1:12. Furthermore, PS has a classroom of muscial instruments.

This is my thoughts... I have colleague who place their kids into church school which costs around 200+, but this does not include school holidays. So effectively they have to find ways to take care of them, also they enrol them for Chinese+Music+Art class which will cost another additional 200-300+. In PS, you have everything in 1 roof, which will save time/effort too.

PS anyway has very good reviews and I think it is time for my little one to learn some independance and some skill sets which we as parents/grandparents may be hard to instill.

....Anyhow, after registering my son, we visited a new classy condominuium "View at Meyer". Its has a very classy architectural building with private lifts. It is sort of a boutique condo. But wow, the price was also classy. It range from 1250 psf (3th floor) to 1450-1500 (9th floor) and 1700 psf at 20+ floor. A 3-bdrm is 1600+ sqf and 4-bdrm 1790 sqf. Thus the price is ard 2.2- 2.9 million. Well according to the property agent there, this is considered a boutique condo, and this is the price to pay. Nearby condos like Esta/Seaview/One amber is ard 900 + psf, but there are easily few hundred units there. I suspect there might be traffic jam just trying to get back home.

I am thinking, at the end of the day, convenience is still my top prority. Getting food is a breeze to me, at my current place, I can get good food within 3 mins walk.

It is also next to a upcoming central MRT. If I were to stay in those Condo, I will have missed out on all these convenience. When my kids grow up, I need not fetch them up/down frequently. My Uncle who lives in Bukit Timah Coronation road, although is considered prime land, he has to be a full time chauffeur as it is so inaccessible.

At the VaM, I also saw Zhou Chu Ming. He seems to have bought a 1-bdroom trying to rent out at 3.5K. Well good luck.

Property seems to be picking up, due to pent up demand and sentiment. However the avalanche of TOP property next year and the wave of expatriate going back home only means that supply is still in abundant. I am not optimistic of property prices in the next 1-2 years, which had not corrected much.

Mar09 update

I Have been rather busy the last 2-3 months
1. RT, or reservist training, this requires you to go for a physical mass exercise at the army camp twice a week for phase 1 (total 4 weeks) . If I fail, I need to go for phase 2 - 3 times a week . Having my neck injury last year prevented me from training for my IPPT.
And being not fond of running, I failed my IPPT the first time (after 3 weeks, 1 week was CNY). I passed all my station except my 2.4 km running which was 14:04.
Well running 3 km everytime really trained my physical fitness, and I improve leaps and bound. Finally on the 2nd time (the 2nd week of RT phase 2 - total 5 weeks), I manage to clear my 2.4km at 12:48. I really had to push myself very very hard to pass. I remembered when I ran my 5th round, my timing was ard 11:05, so I almost sprinted throughout my last lap to the extent of vomitting.
There were 2 things which helped me pass IPPT. First, I really trained and push myself during the RT to train up my physical fitness. It is really our own determination and preseverance whether we want to put any effort during the RT. One can just go to RT and waste time, but I prefer to make full use of it.
The 2nd thing, (maybe it worked for me only) I took some red bull before my run. I felt it boosted some of my strength and feel less fatique during the run.
Well the incentive of passing is that I pass last year and this year !

2. My MIL was feeling rather depressed after her ops, and so she came to my place for recuperation. At least over here, she will have less things to think about. So she was here for about 3-4 weeks. And this made me rather busy as I had to take care more of my son with my wife taking care of her.

3. My wife was involved in a car accident and 2 months after the accident, the other party issued a legal letter to us claiming medical fees and legal fees. These people are really greedy and unscruplous. My wife car hit their car from a stationary postition (both cars was stationary before my wife pressed on the accelarator), It was my wife fault (she was really very stressed during that time with work and her mother operations) and we agreed to pay for the car repairs which came out 4k ( their toyotoa corolla) . Our car was only slightly dented.
During the settlement, we agreed that there were no injury. This was also stated in the report filed to the insurance. However 2 months later, they wanted 8K -10K a person (3 person) and 3k of legal fees each !
In the medical report, it just stated there were only soreness detected. No X-ray no MRI. Of the 3 person, only 1 got 1 day MC, the rest went home the day itself !
We could either reject their claims and fight legally or negotiate with them. Our insurance company suggested the best way was to negotiate with them, as the legal fees at the end of the day might be more than the negotiated amount. I agreed with the settlement although I felt rip off because my wife would be the person who has to spend the time if we go to court. At that time, her mother was having depression and her company was going to retrench people. I think the best thing to save hassle is to settle this. If this happened to me, I will go to court against them. Money is not an issue, If they want to play punk I will play along, it is a matter of principals, I do not want to get rip off and stamp upon.
Well at the end, through the insurance company advise we settled this at 4.5 K a person (including legal fees). What a rip off!

4. My company I am in is doing badly. We had a restructuring where our section was badly hit (20%). Then, 1 person left on his own with no replacement coming in. His job responsibility was assigned to me, and effectively I am doing 2 persons responsibility. I had to work several weekends and even during CNY, I had to work till 2-3 am to finish my work. Also to make it worse, with the restructuring many things/personnel heads were new and had to start from scratch (Business reports and Sales incentives calculations)
Things at least came down quite a bit, with some negotiating some of my previous work (1o%) to my manager, and setting up certain guidelines and framework already , I also manage to automate some stuff.

As a result, my shorting of the market was disastrous. I actually wanted to short the market in Jan (860+) when Obama was giving his speech, however I fell asleep as I was really tired out and I missed the opportunity. S&P dropped to 660+ before rebounding. It rebounded 5% when Citigroup announce they are operational profitable, and futures was postive, and I went in to short (721). It was really v emotional and stupid. After shorting, actually I knew I was v wrong, but I was hopeful that it was a short bounce. Wrong, it went up till I finally covered at 771. Actually I should have considered cut loss quick and change to another position (higher reward risk ratio).
Risk reward ratio was not really there shorting. It was a costly mistake.

I have to really learn from my costly mistake, when I do not have time, do not short (trade). Emotion was also running high which made me into an errenous mistake. What was I thinking ? I was thinking maybe S&P may hit 600... but the risk reward was really not there. Really dumb of me.

Is this the bottom ? Nobody knows, but S&P after 2-3 weeks is around 815+ ( a rally of >20% from its low).

Where to go from here ? Obama and the FED are committed to spent and spent their way out. Is it sustainable and will this lead to the recovery ? I believe yes, but at a costly price of hyperinflation with things to come. Oil has already recovered fr a low of 34+ to 53+. A bit late to get inside.

My portfolio has also took a beating down 30% with Celestial dropping fr 37 to 10 cents. Its PE is now less than 1 (0.7) and P/B of 0.1/0.7. A steal and is really a golden opportunity. Why did it hit so low ? Many China companies are facing accounting scandals, inflated cash (FibreChem), receivables cannot be reconcil, suddenly bankrupt although record profit the quarter before (Ferrochina), owners who pledge their shares for loans suddenly have to pay up (beauty China) and they do no have the cash.

Also, it has a convertible bond that they might potentially have to pay back (1200+ Mill RMB) in June 09. With their full-year report, they are net cash of 810+ cash, short of 400+ if we consider full conversion. This risk was also highlighted by PWC auditors.

There are some risk here, however this is what I feel
1. Many scandals in the US lately (Madoff) are caused with dubious/ficticious auditors. At least PWC has audited them and cleared their financial balance sheet.
2. This is the worst scenario of 100% converesion. I will expect prob 60-80%.
3. When they announce their soya bean zone which costs 1bil RMB, they had only 0.1 bill annual profit. They had pulled through risker projects before and I believe they should be able to pull this through
4. Although credit is tight, banks in China are still lending ( recent reports show China banks lending increase last few months). Banks generally will lend you money if you show that you have little issue of paying off. With strong cash flow of 500+ RMB a year, and Net tangible assets of 2-3 bill RMB, I believe banks will lend to them.
5. I have read some forums of the risk of transmitting RMB/other currency overseas. This is overblown as I see it. Many multnational companies have to do business overseas, it will just take longer (some custom declartion) to transmit the legitimately overseas.

All these cause Celestial to become dirt cheap now. Most people are now keeping clear of China companies . I have been buying because at this price it is really a 20-30 bagger in the making.

What are Celestial future plans ? In end Q1 they are rolling out the 100 K tonnes biodiesel business - a opportunistic time with hyperinflation (I expect oil to be the first one to shoot up) coming. They are also rolling out protein nutrional beverages 15K and 5K of powder. With retail products the contributing 56% or revenue and almost 72% of gross profit, I believe with their brand name and distribution scale they can quickly scale this up.

I am formulating some plans now to see my next step.

Meaning of Life

This is a part of a post in the newspaper about capitalism and materialism from the perspective of a upper-middle class. This provoked some inner thoughts in me.....

"But if one is blinded by materialism, there would be no end to wanting and hankering. After the Ferrari, what next? An Aston Martin? After the Hermes Birkin handbag, what can one upgrade to?

Neither an Aston Martin nor an Hermes Birkin can make us truly happy or contented. They are like dust, a fog obscuring the true meaning of life, and can be blown away in the twinkling of an eye.

When the end approaches and we look back on our lives, will we regret the latest mobile phone or luxury car that we did not acquire? Or would we prefer to die at peace with ourselves, knowing that we have lived lives filled with love, friendship and goodwill, that we have helped some of our fellow voyagers along the way and that we have tried our best to leave this world a slightly better place than how we found it? "

In our pursuits of material weath, we should not forget the true meaning of life, what is important to us. To me, my family (my wife, son, parents and sibilings) is very important to me and I should spend quality time with them and help them in whatever I can.

Last year was a bad time for me where I injured my neck. This year, I will make conscientious effort to take care of my health, eating more healthly, having adequate sleep, doing more housework to make my house clean and conducive for me and my family.

Neck pain

Haven't been feeling too good lately..... after sleeping on my kid's stuff toy, my neck which was unsupported became rather painful.
After that I went for a Kenko massage, and cutting my hair in Malaysia, I also had a short massage. This time, the pain got worse.....
I also continued to carry my baby kid, and the camel back broke when I carried my kid quite a far distance from the carpark to a restaurant in Alawad/Arab Street.

I went to my clinic downstairs ( on a saturday morning) and the Dr. prescribed some medicine. During the medication, the pain was numbed.... when the medicine effect wore off, the pain came back.

(This was 4 days later Thursday evening) I then visited Eu Yan Sang clinic for a Chinese therapy hoping it will help... this made matters worse.... I underwent acupunture around the lower back and head...and under some electric stimulating under some warm lamp...this did not help....the Physician then tried to turn my head a few times....this really made my head worse.....
Nevermind....She gave me some medicine to take...(in powder form)....since I tried it ( and it cost S$90+ including the acupunture)..... lets see the whether there is any help

4-5 days later by Monday, the pain was quite bad... (from a sitting/lying position to a standing/siting position, there is acute pain at the right neck all the way to my head)... I went to my corporate clinic for a referral. The doctor seems quite sceptical (maybe it is the same with all corporate doctors)... and gave me some medicine..... as what happened previously once the medicine was taken, the pain was numbed...once the medicine wore off, the pain came back.....that was around Thursday.
I wanted to see the doctor again on Friday, but the stupid policy means no doctor in the afternoon......

I went back the following Monday, and the refer me to the orthopedic for referral... and they gave me a date 1 week later on Tuesday.
This time, I think I will visit the private doctor which my Mother-in-law is visiting this Saturday...
Suffering for 4 weeks is no joke....I just want to get well soon...have been missing a lot of fun with my boy lately, and my poor wife has to take care of him and carry the heavy stuff....

My lesson now is once you have a slight neck pain,
- never go for a massage
- never carry heavy things more than 2 kg... no laptop...no carrying of kid
- never walk more than 100 metres if possible
(today I was actually feeling better in the morning, but the afternoon there was a stupid all hands meeting which I had to walk all the way to 168, and sit in a very uncomfortable position for 1 and a half hours repeating what has already been known)

Happy Good Friday

Went over to my sis-in-law for their house warming in Selangor (Bukit Jelutong).
I quite liked the spacious garden - brazilian trees/ palm trees, white and black big pebbles flooring at the porch and carpet grass. It is 7600 sq feet, very hugh. I also liked the high ceilings - giving it a cosy homely feeling. Also the AV hi-fi room was very professional. - with pre amp/ power amp, CDs and big speakers. The yellow lighting and carpet and sofa made the whole room very professional. I heard the house is about 1.4 Mio RM.

Visited Datuk's house in Bangsa - another high end residential district. What I liked was the curving / ovalish flooring. It has a fantastic view as well.
What did not look too good was that it did not have a spacious garden, and the ceilings was too short.

Another high end condominium popular with Singaporeans is Mont Kiara

Happy Chinese New Year - Good Food

May the year of the Rat bring health and prosperity to everyone :)

I went over to my in-laws place on the 2nd day.

We went to "Fei Cui" Crystal Jade at Pegarang - Sungei Ringit.

The good food include Lobster (with herbs), Hor fun, and Fish(Assam and fried/baked).

I remember just before reaching there, go right (at the slight Y diversion road), right again , coming to Shell then turn left.

Fixmarket - Life Experience

This Fixmarket thing return to haunt me. This Mr. Jiang still has not paid 2 years of auditing fee for Fixmarket.

I am really quite fed up and I want to close this chapter this year. Either he appoint another foreign director and I resign or he close the company.

Emmy also told me to beware of Amy. This teaches me a lesson on how far you can extend your friendship to people. Apparently, Amy asked Emmy (when she was an employee of Amy) to help her pack her things. And this CID (Amy's boyfriend) did not let her into the house. At the end, only the packers came into the house to pack her things. This apprarently saved her as Amy was suspected of stealing Diamonds and Jewellery from her father-in-law. If she had entered the house, she will be suspected of stealing the goods. Apparently she told the police that the goods were stolen along the way when the goods were packed from that house to another location. If Emmy were allowed into the house, she would be the prime suspect.

She also warned us not to help Amy to carry her things.