The Ring Around the Sun

Assalamualaikum..

Been busy with life that I couldn’t be arsed to write anything for the past couple of months. And suddenly its nearing the end of July. How did the past 6 months just disappear?

 

Sold my car and got a supposedly fuel efficient and environmentally friendly new machine.

Went to Jakarta in February

Went to Japan (again) with the colleagues in early May

 

Enrolled for CFA programme. One of the toughest exams in the world, the hell was I’m thinking? Library visits, weekend classes and tests are part of life (foresee that I wont be enjoying much life for the next 3 years). Enjoying the company of my brilliant classmates though, bless them.

 

On a job hunt. thus been to interviews. Got an offer. Resigned from current job. But still going for interviews in other companies. Still have 2 months to serve the notice period.

 

Bought a studio apartment. Actually this was done on impulse. The construction of the condo is supposedly finish this coming year end. We shall see.

 

Til then.

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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.

good feeling

There is a fuzzy feeling when..

 

 

 

 

 

 

knowing that your team’s hardwork for the past one year is finally over and has paid off (well sorta). We have managed to issue MYR 2.0 billion worth of sukuk (shariah compliant bond) on 29 May 2013. Being a AAA rated + corporate guaranteed sukuk, it was oversubscribed by 9 times by 52 investors. Aaahhhh that damn good feeling. And with that issuance we have finally been able to list the bank in the top 5 spot of Bloomberg’s league table (a definite measure of success and capability in the world of corporate debt).

Now, excuse me while I’m off to take a looonggggg nap 😉