Sunday, November 28, 2010

Korea? Ireland? Portugal? Spain? What a waste of time. Just focus on Christmas shopping.

Here I am sitting in front of my tv wondering what I should write about for this week's post Not that there is nothing to write about, especially during a week when the markets have gone through a hellish ride. We had bailouts and artillery firing on the menu and that is still not all. Throw in property curbs in HK affecting sentiment there and interest rate worries in China, no wonder the market did not have a good time.

Bear in mind, volume has been thin during the past week due to thanksgiving holidays and Christmas getting close. Fund managers out there are asked to close their books for the year by this time and that also explains for the profit taking in the market. For retail investors out there beware. Sell at your own peril. I do not want to sound like a broken record by calling for an overweight on equities. That is why I really do not know what to write about this week.

All I can say is, if you are worried about the Euro crisis, then you have fallen for the fear mongering exploits of the media once again. Think about it. Did you all read about Portugal and Spain during the May sell down? Are the current headlines new to you? Why was there nothing written about the PIGS countries during the August, September and October run up in the markets? When the markets are doing well, the good news flows like water out of a tap, but when the markets start to show some red, the bad news flows like sewage out of a sewer. Be objective. Be rational.

Everyone is talking about how the Irish govt will need to bail out the Irish banks by nationalising them. There is really some suspicion on my part on whether all the banks really need the bailout if the media did not create so much fear with their over-sensationalised headlines. Yes, Allied Irish will need a bailout, but according to Bloomberg's data, Bank of Ireland has a tier one capital of close to the required 12 percent. Why would this bank need a bailout? But with so many headlines revolving around the problems in the banks, who wouldn't go to the bank to withdraw all their money from the banks? Any rational person would do it. Bank of Ireland now trades at 0.06 times price to book and even if the Irish govt takes an 85% stake in the bank, up from their current holdings of 36%, the book value of the bank would still be close to Euro $1.34. This is one of the main reasons to why I really dislike the media for their irresponsible reporting without finding out all the facts. Causing unnecessary panic to sell more news papers.

What about the North Koreans shelling artillery fire onto the OBSCURE island called Yeonpyeong? The markets all reacted really badly when the news broke on the exchange of fire between the two Koreas. Most markets fell close to 2% on that day. What happened the next day? A full rebound in most markets. To make things worse, Korea's Kospi only fell less than 0.5% on the news while Singapore fell 2%. The markets obviously over-reacted to the news and the way the STI reacted, you would have thought it was us that got fired on. My goodness. The media reminds me of the story of the boy that cried wolf.

Since I started working in the investment industry, the North Koreans have fired on their Southern counterparts every 6-12 months. So I really am sick of the markets over-reacting to such trivial matters. They sunk a South Korean ship earlier this year and 46 people died, what happened? NOTHING. So 4 soldiers dying this time is really an improvement from the last incident. Moral of the story, do not worry about a full blown war resulting from these incidents. The South Koreans have too much to lose to go into a war. Not when they are making tons of money selling consumer goods like LED TVs, mobile phones and cars to the world. Unless there is a direct attack on Seoul, do not bother about such silly incidents. They are non events.

Anyway its getting late on a Sunday night and I really do not think there are any issues of significance which I should write too much about. Just keep the faith and buy more stocks. It will do you good over the next 12 months. Take all the stocks you have bought off your watch list and enjoy the Christmas holidays.

Injured my finger during basketball so will not dwell on too many things this week.

Till the next week, have a great week ahead!

Best,

SVI

Sunday, November 21, 2010

The cheapest Chinese winery stock in the world! China Ouhua Winery RM$0.815

Question. Have you ever drank red wine from China? I have. What did I think of it? It was definitely no Bordeaux but it was decent. I love their names though. We have Great Wall, Dynasty etc. Wines named with the grandest of names. You have to hand it to the Chinese when it comes to naming things. Its either too cheesy or it is as grand as royalty. Why did I ask this question? I know last year one of my key calls was Trump Dragon, a Baijiu distiller listed in Singapore. That stock has done well for me and here I am once again calling for another alcohol stock. This time, I am going with a different drink, one that has a significantly larger international audience.

I know some of you must be thinking that I am a big alcohol lover. I do admit, I used to indulge in reckless drinking during my days in university but now I am a reformed alcoholic. No alcoholic anonymous groups for me but I used to border on a possibility of becoming a member. Now, I just like to invest in them. Why? A few reasons. Alcohol is one of the few legal drugs, where open consumption is allowed. The other is coffee. If you consider gambling in a more tangible sense, it can also be considered as a drug. In short, as long as there is the possibility of addiction involved, it is a fantastic business.

The stock I want to introduce to all of you is China Ouhua Winery. It has only recently listed in Malaysia and some of you may wonder why a Chinese winery would choose to list in our favourite neighbour's stock market. The reason given was that the listing proceedings in China takes to long and the company is looking to gain financing quickly for their expansion plans. The company's growth is slowing down due to its capacity limits and that is why it is looking to expand its production capacities to cope with the fast growing market.

Fun fact: China's consumption of wine will reach 1 billion bottles by 2012, but that would mean they would still only be 7th largest wine consumer in the world. France being the largest. Now that explains why the French are always so drunk all the time.

China Ouhua Winery's business involves:

* Production and distribution of Fazenda Ohua Wines produced from locally sourced wine materials and grapes including grapes from their very own vineyards

* Production and distribution of International Wines which are sourced from various wine-growing regions outside the PRC such as France, Australia, Spain, Chile and Germany through local PRC wine material traders

* Development of Fazenda Ohua Wines and International Wines and the marketing of these wines throughout PRC

* Research & Development for new and diverse offerings of wine

* Product design, product packaging and branding

They are one of the producers and distributors of quality grape wines in the PRC, with a portfolio that includes well-recognised proprietary wine labels distributed with approximately 3,100 point-of-sales across the PRC. Their business operations span across the entire value chain of the wine industry, from the cultivation of vineyards and production of wines to the strategic management of distribution networks for our wine labels, adding value at each stage of the value chain. The Group sold approximately 7,700 tonnes of wines throughout the PRC in 2009.

They produce red and white wines which they distribute for sale under their flagship Fazenda Ohua Wine labels. They distribute red and white wines produced from wine of French, Australian, Spanish, Chilean and German origins under their International Wine labels. As at September 2010, the company offers approximately 87 and 60 varieties of wine under their local Fazenda Ohua Wine labels and International Wine labels respectively.

Ouhua's wines are primarily distributed for sale within the PRC through appointed master distributors, who in turn distribute these wines to end consumers via an extensive retail network of Fazenda Ohua specialty stores, which are managed by experienced and knowledgeable service staff trained by our in-house winemaker. Other distribution channels include direct sales to retail intermediaries such as hypermarkets, retail outlets and third party specialty stores that sell alcohol as well as food & beverage establishments such as restaurants, hotels and entertainment outlets.

As at September 2010, their distribution network encompasses 13 appointed master distributors, 113 Fazenda Ohua specialty stores (including nine (9) Ohua Château type stores and 104 Ohua Manor type stores that are operated and owned by these appointed master distributors and sub-distributors) and their wines are, retailed at approximately 3,100 point-of-sales spanning no less than 13 provinces and cities throughout the PRC.

Ouhua's wine estate comprising of winery and vineyards is situated in Yantai City, Shandong Province. Yantai is a coastal city located in the province of Shandong, where it enjoys a moderate winter and summer. It is at the same latitude as major vine cultivation regions in France and Italy and is reputed to be the best place in PRC to grow vines due to its plentiful rain and abundant sunshine, earning the city the moniker of "Oriental Bordeaux". The industrialised production of grape wine in Yantai has been established for more than 100 years and today, Yantai is known as the wine hub of the PRC.

As at September 2010, their winery has a production capacity of approximately 12,480 tonnes of wine per annum, and their own two (2) vineyards in the Yantai-Penglai locality span across cultivation areas of approximately 5,500 Mu (equivalent to approximately 3.67 million sq m) in aggregate.

Why do I like it. Valuation wise, I have been searching for a cheaper China winery stock in the world. Dynasty wines, Anhui Golden Seed Winery and China Foods are the few I could find on Bloomberg and guess what is the average P/E for them? 40 times! What do you think is Ouhua's? 7.8 times! Is that cheap or what? Yes yes, we need to place a discount to the Malaysian market compared to that of the HK and China markets. But does that mean we should trade at a 80% discount? Hell no! In their prospectus, the company also stated their 1H2010 results and at the rate they were growing, it is only trading at 5 times 2010 earnings. Now I was astonished by the valuation and I figured it has a lot to do with the small size of the company and also the fact that it is listed in Malaysia did not help. Nonetheless, most importantly, the company is very cheap and dealing in an industry that is growing exponentially.

The company has stated that they currently have 2-3% share of the Chinese wine market. Lets be realistic, growth wise the company will not be able to compete with the big boys unless they spend more on their branding and also their capacity. I will be happy if they maintain their market share because this is a market that is growing extremely quickly thus the company's business will be pegged to the growth the market. That alone we are talking about almost 20% per year. Personally, I think the stock has very little downside from this point and it is a good opportunity to take a stake in it now while it is consolidating at this price. This is my number one call right now and I need to apologise for not writing on this earlier, but I really have been too busy.

Take a closer look at this stock cos it will be worth it.

Best,

SVI