Photo: Samuel Isaac Chua/The Edge Singapore
The top management of Ho Bee Land have been buying up shares of the tightly-held developer. On May 24, via his privately-held entity called Ho Bee Holdings, chairman and CEO Chua Thian Poh acquired 133,700 shares for $339,598 or $2.54 each. With the purchase, Chua now has a deemed interest of 501.25 million shares or a 75.488% stake, up from 75.468% previously.
Two months earlier, on March 23, Chua had acquired 15,000 shares for $36,336 or $2.42 each. On the same day, Ho Bee’s executive director and COO Ong Chong Hua acquired 100,000 shares for $244,324.
With the acquisition, Ong, who joined the company in 1995, now holds 1.9 million shares or a 0.286% stake, up from 1.8 million shares previously.
The last time Chua had acquired Ho Bee shares was late last year. On Dec 24, 29 and 31, Chua acquired a total of around 380,000 shares between $2.37 and $2.40. As at Dec 31, 2020, Ho Bee shares were trading at a substantive discount to its net asset value of $5.46 per share. This was slightly higher than the NAV of $5.32 reported as at Dec 31, 2019.
On March 17, Ho Bee announced it had acquired three residential sites in Australia. The first was at Collingwood Park, Queensland, some 30km from the Brisbane CBD and costing $14.3 million. The 27.15ha site could yield around 323 residential lots.
The second site, located at Tarneit, Victoria, was acquired for $73.2 million. Covering 59.73ha, the plot could yield around 755 residential lots.
The third site, located at Officer, Victoria, and costing $16.23 million, could take up to 119 residential lots on the 8.31ha site.
For the FY2020 ended Dec 31, 2020, Ho Bee reported earnings of $137.1 million, down 58.8% from $332.3 million in FY2019. In FY2020, Ho Bee Land recorded a net fair value loss of $32.8 million on its portfolio versus a fair value gain of $243.7 million in FY2019. Revenue also fell 59.8% y-o-y to $186.8 million. Even so, Ho Bee maintained its total dividend for FY2020 at 10 cents per share, unchanged from FY2019.
Focus on domestic demand
Henry Tay, executive chairman of The Hour Glass, acquired 120,000 shares on the open market, days after the luxury watch retailer reported improved earnings despite the pandemic hurting businesses in general.
On May 24, Tay paid $126,999.60 for the shares, which worked out to an average of around $1.06 per share. Tay now owns a direct stake of some 65 million shares, equivalent to 9.234%, up from 9.217% previously. With his deemed stake of 378.2 million shares or 53.719% stake, he now has a total interest of 443.2 million shares or 62.953%.
On May 20, The Hour Glass reported revenue of $742.9 million for FY2021 ended March 31, down 1% y-o-y. However, thanks to higher gross margins of 29.9% for FY2021 compared with 28.8% in FY2020, it was able to report earnings of $84.5 million, 9% higher than FY2019’s $77.4 million. The company plans to pay a final FY2021 dividend of 4 cents, which is double that of the preceding year.
As a result of the pandemic, almost all travel has been suspended, hurting tourism receipts. “The group’s long-term strategy to attract domestic spending across the region — even as the travel and tourism industries languished — came to bear and helped deliver a good financial year,” states The Hour Glass in its earnings commentary.
“We are humbled by the collective organisational effort in effectively executing our post-lockdown recovery strategy. We built positive sales momentum for a strong second-half performance in both emerging and mature markets,” says group managing director Michael Tay.
