Caveat Emptor

The Malaysian financial market has seen one major, if not shocking development on the first quarter of 2014.

The Bank won in Pesaka Astana case vs the bondholders. According to The Star, the decision by the Federal Court rattles the bond market. Well, this is the first Malaysian case whereby the Federal Court favoured the Principal Adviser / Lead Arranger, on the basis of veracity of information contained in the Information Memorandum (IM). Similar to prospectus issued by IPO, IM is a sales brochure containing the information on the bonds, which usually are sent to the institutional investors. In Malaysia IM are also available on the SC website, therefore it is a public document. One of the ways bond is different from shares and funds is that the bondholders are sophisticated investors where they are mainly institutional investors, the likes of Employee Provident Funds, Pilgrimage Funds, banks and other fund management companies. These institutional investors have vast capital market knowledge and experience, hence the difference in regulatory treatment and requirement for them as opposed to retail investors in shares, people like you and me.

Below are the chronology of this case, prepared by The Star:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However Maybank Trustees is not spared from the liability.

 

I personally don’t think that efficiency of the market will be affected after this. Ever since the first issuance of bond in our market, it has always been targeted to sophisticated investors, whom are expected to conduct their own research and due diligence before making their investment decisions. Therefore with this new court ruling, which not in favour of the bondholders it would mean a greater checks and balances on the investment decisions made by the fund managers.

Advertisement

Ain’t Nuthin But a G Thang

Not what you think 🙂 The title, this song, is just depicting something old school. In this case, the memories when I first started in the corporate world.

Not exactly old school, but yea, whatevs.

Here are my friends, the goons and me.

Met these chicas back in 2007 at the SC. I joined the Commission in June and few months after that Farah and Mun came along. We clicked somehow, Farah and I even carpooled to work since we both stayed in Subang. I started to get close to Hafsa when we were stationed in the same department and we became neighbours at work.

I had my first taste of Perhentian with her back in 2009 (it was love at first site and I ended up going there seven more times heheh).

Silhouette shot during sunset

The obligatory jump shot

One of the thousands of pictures we took while few others went diving. Oh, Hafsa ended up marrying the guy at the far right 🙂

Us goons

See, this post is just about me missing their friendship and the camaraderie. Even though our time wasn’t that long as I left the Commission in 2011, but the bond remains strong until now. I guess its the memories that keep us together.

The fateful annual dinner back in 2008 where we performed an Arabian themed musical. I was the bad girl of course.

I have so many (too many in fact) profound memories of the SC. Apart from awesome friends cum colleagues, I had the best boss ever there. He was the head of department who sat beside me at the Bloomberg station teaching me stuff where I in fact only asked him a simple matter that didn’t really warrant him explaining it to me in such great effort. For that I am forever grateful to him. Too bad my time with him at that department didn’t last long. If only I could have him back as my boss (not that my current ones are bad, but still).

Fly away little angel 😛

Going places

Here’s a snippet of my whereabouts this couple of weeks and months..

Sekeping Tenggiri. A night stay at this serene place, a stone’s throw away from KL. Loved the rustic concept, the open air bathroom and the empty pool. Minus point, non-stop dogs barking kept us awake the whole night. 

Kuala Selangor Nature’s Park. My second visit here. This time with the family. Had seafood dinner after the visit. 

 

Jakarta (yet again) . Just because I love the city, uhm plus this is our sort of family gateaway. I escaped the hazy and hot and stuffy KL to this wonderful city at quite the right time. It was raining, even flooding at certain places (but not too bad) plus the city was not too dusty when I went there. 

National Museum

 

Museum Bank Indonesia. Very interesting, Lotsa stories to tell, lessons to be learnt here. Gotta make an entry solely on this one.

Sculpture found at the National Museum. The 3 faced-goddess, the one that could be found at Angkor Wat.

Awesome friends in Jakarta

Nasi Goreng Kambing for supper. Damn good.

 

#prayformh370

I have lost for words. Indeed this is the worst airline tragedy (?) mishap (?) mystery (?) that had ever happened to Malaysia Airlines. 

A friend made this poster and brought it to Kuala Lumpur International Airport

Day 5 and still no sightings. The urgency of the situation has warranted massive international aids in forms of planes, submarines, vessels and land search from neighboring countries, even as far as US. Question is, how can a commercial airline just vanished off radar screens? 

 

Wallahua’lam. Indeed, the God is all knowing. Kun fayakun.

It matters to be rational

You got time? Read online news, it is funny, sometimes. But not the content I mean.

Five reasons Singapore is now the most expensive city in the world

With Singapore being named the world’s most expensive city, the Straits Times has published a comparative study on the five big ticket items which contributed to the ranking.

The Straits Times report compared the prices of these items with those of a similar standard in five different developed nations.

The following are the items and the price comparisons:

Property rental

A three-bedroom apartment of between 1,200 and 1,500 sq ft averages S$8,000 (RM20,700) a month in Singapore.

In New York, a three-bedroom apartment of between 950 and 1,800 sq ft ranges from US$1,750 (S$2,221, RM5,700) to US$2,500 in the outlying neighbourhoods and US$6,000 to US$15,000 in Manhattan.

Cars

A Mercedes Benz E-class in Singapore will cost upwards of S$277,000 aside from an Open category COE which can be acquired for another S$79,000. (COE is the Certificate of Entitlement which one must have in order to buy a car.)

In Germany, a Mercedes Benz E-class will cost from €40,668 (S$71,062, RM183,400) onwards.

Clothing, in the category of luxury retail

If you are thinking of shopping in Singapore, be mindful that a Giorgio Armani men’s suit starts from S$3,000 and can go up to S$4,000. On the other hand, in Italy, a men’s suit from Giorgio Armani starts from €1,500 (S$2,619).

Food & wine

The signature dish of steak tartare at the famous L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon restaurant at Resorts World Sentosa costs S$52. A bottle of Moet & Chandon in Singapore costs at least S$83.

Similarly, a degustation menu at the L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon restaurant in Paris costs €38 (S$66). A bottle of Moet & Chandon in France usually costs only €32.90 (S$57).

Utilities

Finally, according to the Straits times, in Singapore, the utilities bill for a four-person household in a HDB flat is likely to average between S$150 and S$200.

In Tokyo, the utilities bill for a four-person household in an apartment averages between 12,000 yen (S$150, RM386) in summer and 30,000 yen (S$375) in winter. – March 4, 2014.

– The Malaysian Insider

See I sometimes read comments on the articles. A habit or a disease, call it whatever. I found that in all the comments, especially in controversial articles, there have to be at least few comments that worthy of a (multiple) slap.

Exhibits as per below:

“And 5 reasons Malaysia is the poor neighbour. 

1) Plenty of corruption
2) Plenty of non capable leaders running the country
3) Plenty of wasting of resources
4) Plenty of non practice of meritocracy
5) Plenty of DUMNO related NGOs scaring away foreign investors”

Why would anyone associate a harmless article with his political views, I have no idea.

“Why is it being portrayed as bad to be the most expensive city? Isn’t that what Najib is trying to achieve, high income society? When you have high income society, things around you will become expensive.
For Singaporeans now, traveling abroad is cheap and that is good, at least in my books. And they also have a high income to buy and invest overseas. Meanwhile, this also means that they are able to offer the best salary to attract the best brains in the world to help them power on.
Well done Singapore, you are exemplary to the rest of Asia on how you broke free of Malaysia to be what you are today, leaving the DUMNOs either scratching their heads or eating sour grapes.”

Well this fella had some nice thoughts initially. Then he of course, dwell on politics, blaming umno for what our country lacks as compared to our rich neighbour.

 

How brilliant it is to them, associating every meagre issues with political ideas and criticism.

Really, let’s just try to focus on the issues and keep the unnecessary thoughts from plaguing our mind.

Local joke on a hazy Monday

I find this to be very amusing:

“Datuk XX has truly an exceptional success story. Being incredibly hardworking at a very young age, be it in his studies and in business, he constantly demonstrate a deep passion for the automotive industry. Currently being the CEO of the ZZ Group of Companies, Datuk XX is, beyond doubt, affine illustration in empowering young Malaysians to success.”

 

 

Found this joke on the company’s website. What exceptional success story? Please, it’s so funny I could die.