Malaysians should take heed of the highly priced IPO!

Malaysians should take heed that IPOs don’t always make money as the Facebook fiasco has amply demonstrated.

IF you think an initial public offering (IPO) is a sure way of making money, think again – things can go seriously wrong and companies can open a lot lower than their IPO price.

If anyone has delusions about an IPO automatically making money for those fortunate enough to have obtained the shares at that stage, the recent episode with Facebook should dispel any such notion.
Barely a week into trading, Facebook is trading at an 18% discount to its IPO price at the time of writing, hardly something that inspires confidence in IPOs in this current poor market.

Like me not: A Facebook Like Button logo is displayed on a window of a store in Palo Alto, California. Facebook and its underwriters came under legal attack as investors filed lawsuits over Facebook’s flop controversy-marred IPO and have accused the company of hiding material information from investors. If anyone has delusions about an IPO automatically making money, the recent episode with Facebook should dispel any such notion. — AFP

 

Facebook was offered at US$38 per share to raise US$16bil for the vendors that included founder Mark Zuckerberg, who became a cash billionaire after the deal and whose company was valued at US$104bil based on the IPO price.

And this for a company that had earnings of less than US$1bil and revenue of US$3.7bil, giving a historical price earnings ratio (market value divided by earnings) of over 100.

But still investment bankers felt they had a deal, secured the IPO investors and then listed the stock on May 17, only to see a steep fall from the very first day of trading, which eventually saw a cut in value of almost a fifth.

That’s amazing for a stock pushed by some of the top investment firms in the US including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and a company with such a strong brand recognition too.

Now disgruntled investors are crying foul and amidst reports of selective information given to some banks by Facebook, shareholders have started suing Facebook and Zuckerberg in an embarrassing development that threatens to overturn yet again how Wall Street does business.

The entire Facebook fiasco underlines one key important lesson – ignore fundamental valuation at your own risk. True, markets have their own madness and sometimes stocks trade way above what can be considered their intrinsic value.

But they don’t stay there for long if they ever do especially if the earnings stream does not start kicking in soon. And if there are any indications of problem, one can expect no less than a collapse in share prices if valuations were excessively high in the first place.

As the Facebook saga unfolds in the US, the applications closed yesterday for Gas Malaysia’s IPO here. Those who follow the situation here closely may realise that disclosure in IPOs, while it may seem better than before, need not necessarily be so.

Try as I might I could not find a forecast for earnings for Gas Malaysia in its prospectus, a company with a blue chip reputation owned by amongst others, an MMC Holdings-Shahpadu joint venture, Petronas Gas and Tokyo Gas-Mitsui. The Petronas name attached to it gives it a certain mystic and pedigree, no doubt.

But still I could not find forecast earnings per share or dividends for this year in the thick prospectus of over 300 pages. If it was in there – and I doubt that – should it not have been highlighted? And how does one value the company without such figures?

There was a time when every IPO had forecast earnings and dividends, sometimes for more than a year. That gave retail investors a good feel for the company they were buying but apparently that’s no more the requirement. In the light of the Facebook fiasco, that’s a retrograde step.

Whether it’s in the US or here, there is a clear need to tighten up IPO procedures and disclosures so that all investors have equal access to information and are not discriminated against. That helps in the creation of a fair, orderly and clean capital market, which people can generally rely upon.

In Gas Malaysia’s case, some analysts put the forward price earnings ratio at the issue price of RM2.20 a share at 18 times and the dividend yield at 4.4%. It is academic now since applications have closed but those don’t look particularly attractive.

At 18 times, the price earnings ratio is above that of many Malaysian blue chips. The dividend yield at 4.4% look respectable but is based on 100% of earnings being paid out as dividends, which makes it equivalent to the earnings yield and also implies very little or no future growth because nothing is being retained in the business for expansion.

In that context it looks less than attractive. But the Malaysian public, perceiving IPOs as a means to make money and attracted by Gas Malaysia’s affiliations, including that with national oil corporation Petronas, might think otherwise.

One hopes not, but if the valuations turn out to be expensive, then there could be nasty surprises. To reduce the possibility of that, regulatory authorities should probably revert to older, more stringent standards for IPOs which require profit and dividend forecasts to be clearly stated and verified, subject to the usual conditions, by the merchant bankers and accountants.

That will go some way to reassure investors, and especially retail investors who are the last to know things, that there is substance in the company that supports the issue price.

We certainly don’t want a Facebook-style fiasco in Malaysia.

A Question of Business  By P. GUNASEGARAM starbiz@thestar.com.my

·Independent consultant and writer P Gunasegaram (t.p.guna@gmail.com) is not a fan of Facebook, the service or Facebook, the company.

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Facebook market makers' losses total at least $100m; Share price should trade for $13.80! 

Facebook market makers' losses total at least $100m; Share price should trade for $13.80!

NEW YORK (Reuters): Claims by four of Wall Street's main market makers against Nasdaq over Facebook's botched IPO are likely to exceed $100 million, as they and other traders continue to deal with thousands of problems with customer orders.

A technical glitch delayed the social networking company's market debut by 30 minutes on Friday and many client orders were delayed, giving some investors and traders significant losses as the stock price dropped. The exchange operator is facing lawsuits from investors and threats of legal action from brokers.

Four of the top market makers in the Facebook IPO -- Knight Capital, Citadel Securities, UBS AG and Citi's Automated Trading Desk -- collectively have probably lost more than $100 million from problems arising from the deal, said a senior executive at one of the firms.

Knight and Citadel are each claiming losses of $30 million to $35 million, potentially overwhelming a $13 million fund the exchange set up to deal with potential claims.

Nasdaq also has to contend with the outside prospect that it could lose the Facebook listing entirely after having just obtained it.

Facebook shares ended regular trading on Thursday up 3.2 percent at $33.03, about $5 short of their offering price. Action on the stock, however, has essentially become secondary to the fallout from the IPO -- its price, its size, its execution and questions about selective disclosure of its financial prospects.

Regulators including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin are now looking into how the IPO was handled. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is also reviewing the matter.

BROKERS UP IN ARMS

Advisers familiar with the situation said many investors are now finding out, nearly a week after the fact, that their orders were not executed at the prices they thought.

Fidelity, in a statement, said it was working with regulators and market makers on its clients' issues "and we will continue to do so until we are confident that Nasdaq has done everything it can to mitigate the impact to our customers."

Morgan Stanley is also still tending to trade orders placed by brokerage customers on Friday, two people familiar with the situation said. Nasdaq has said all orders were returned by 1:50 p.m. EDT last Friday, but a Morgan Stanley Smith Barney source said it did not get trade information in a "systemic, orderly way.

Late Thursday, the company held a call with its brokers and told them adjustments would be made to thousands of trades so that no limit orders would be filled at more than $43 a share for stock from the IPO day, a person familiar with the call said.

While brokerages may have received confirmation of trades made on Friday, many were still handling customer disputes over what price they received on the trades, officials said.

The question is "who is going to eat the cost" of compensating those investors, said Alan Haft, a financial adviser with California-based Kings Point Capital LLC, which has $200 million in assets.

One prominent plaintiffs lawyer said what happened with Facebook was reminiscent of the dot-com bubble.

"This is just another spin on the same game of unfair treatment of individual investors," said Stanley Bernstein of Bernstein Liebhard. He chaired the plaintiffs' committee in an IPO class-action suit challenging the role of investment banks in more than 300 IPOs between 1998 and 2000. The litigation ended in a $586 million settlement in favor of the plaintiffs.

MARKET MAKERS LOOM

The claims by market makers Knight and Citadel could end up dwarfing some of the brokerage issues, though.

"They are certainly facing the specter of some significant lawsuits if this pool is not enough," a source familiar with Knight's situation said of the Nasdaq claims pool.

Citadel has sent its losses to Nasdaq for potential compensation, a source familiar with the matter said. Citadel's hedge fund was not affected.

The head of trading at Instinet said it still had no idea when Nasdaq would respond to requests for accommodation -- essentially, compensation for the order problems -- or if those requests would be honored.

"Were gonna be looking at a loss on our books" if Nasdaq does not honor the requests, Mark Turner said. "We basically made most of our clients whole because Nasdaq told us to go through the process and file for accommodation. If Nasdaq does not accommodate us we're going to end up taking a loss."

"I don't know that I want to put a dollar amount on that but it's not nearly as significant as Knight's ($30-$35 million)," he said.

Citadel and Knight, as market makers to the Nasdaq, honor their clients' buy, sell and cancellation orders. The orders are supposed to be processed by the exchange within milliseconds, but there was a nearly two-hour delay in processing Facebook orders at the Nasdaq.

During that time, market makers had no idea where their orders stood. And in reality, the price clients bought or sold at was sometimes different than the price they actually got.

For example, Facebook shares began trading with an opening cross price - the first price at which those not in on the IPO could buy or sell - of $42 per share. If an order to sell 10,000 shares at $42 went in at that time, but wasn't filled until later in the day when shares were trading at around $39, a market maker like Citadel or Knight would make up the difference - in this case, at a cost of $30,000.

FEWER PROBLEMS ELSEWHERE

Several analysts who cover exchanges said Nasdaq's legal liability should be limited, though. According to the analysts, securities rules give Nasdaq wide discretion in determining what, if any, compensation it should pay to customers who claim that they suffered losses due to trading execution.

Under exchange rules, Nasdaq's liability regarding client losses from certain trading issues is limited to $3 million a month. Market makers will be arguing that Nasdaq was so grossly negligent that its actions during the IPO opening override the limits, said a source with knowledge of Knight's situation.

Other firms said they did not have similar problems to those of Knight, raising questions about the scope of the losses.

"The problems were where people were trying to cancel orders; we didn't have that," said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York. "Because we didn't have a problem doesn't mean there weren't problems."

E*Trade Financial Corp said its market making operations realized losses of "well under a million dollars."

Charles Schwab Corp had a "small number" of the "tens of thousands of clients" who traded Facebook whose issues still have not been resolved, a spokesman said. "Each one requires some analysis to resolve, which can be time consuming."

Shares of Nasdaq fell 1 cent to $21.80 on Thursday. As of Thursday's close the stock was down 5.2 percent from its last close before the Facebook debacle. Over the same period NYSE Euronext is down just 0.1 percent.

The slide in the shares is adding to the pressure on Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld, who defended the exchange's performance at its annual meeting last Tuesday.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ) 

  vs. Technology Services  News

Chart

 

By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch

May 25, 2012, 12:02 a.m.

Facebook’s stock should trade for $13.80 
Commentary: Here’s a fair-price calculation for Facebook

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — Well, then, what should be the price of Facebook’s stock? 

Rather than endlessly rehashing the events that have taken place over the last week, it is this question that investors should be asking. Surprisingly, however, few are doing so. 

And yet, courtesy of a just-released study, calculating a fair price for Facebook’s stock isn’t as difficult as it might otherwise seem. 

The study is entitled “Post-IPO Employment and Revenue Growth for U.S. IPOs, June 1996–2010.” Its authors are Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida, and two researchers at the University of California, Davis: Martin Kenney, a professor in the Department of Human and Community Development, and Donald Patton, a research associate in that same department. ( Click here to read a copy of their study. )

The researchers found that the revenue of the average company going public between 1996 and 2010 grew by 212% over the five years after its IPO. Assuming Facebook’s revenue grows just as fast, and given that the company’s latest-year revenue was $3.71 billion, its annual revenue in five years’ time will be $11.58 billion. 

Click to Play

NYSE, Nasdaq face off for Facebook

After the fumbled IPO for Facebook, the NYSE is renewing efforts to lure more stock listings away from its rival, Nasdaq, Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

Since Facebook FB +3.22%   is most often compared to Google GOOG -0.95%  , let’s assume that its price-to-sales ratio in five years will be just as high as Google’s is currently: 5.51-to-1. You could argue that this is an overly generous assumption, of course. But it nevertheless means Facebook’s market cap in five years will be just $63.8 billion — 30% less than where it stands today. 

Assuming that the total number of its shares stays constant, that works out to a price per share of just $23.26 — in contrast to its recent closing price of $33.03. 

Ouch. 

Actually, however, the news is even worse: No one is going to invest in Facebook shares today if its price will be 30% lower in five years. So, in order to entice someone to invest in it today, Facebook needs to offer a handsome return. Assuming that its five-year return is equal to the stock market’s long-term average return of 11% annualized, Facebook shares currently would need to be trading at just $13.80. 

Double ouch. 

Don’t like that answer? Try focusing on earnings rather than sales, and you get only a marginally different result. Assuming its profit margin stays constant (instead of falling as it could very well do as it grows), assuming its P/E ratio in five years will be just as high as Google’s is today, and assuming that its stock will produce a five-year return of 11% annualized, Facebook’s stock today should be just $16.66. 

How can Facebook investors wriggle out from underneath the awful picture these calculations paint? By assuming that its revenue and profitability will grow faster than the average IPO between 1996 and 2010 — and not just by a little bit, either, but a whole lot faster. 

Of course, it’s always possible that Facebook will be able to pull that off. 

But, as Professor Ritter pointed out to me earlier this week, “the bigger a company gets, the harder it is to maintain percentage growth.” And Facebook is already huge — larger, in fact, than all but 47 other publicly traded companies in the U.S. 

So my back-of-the-envelope calculations for this column could very well be too optimistic rather than too pessimistic. 

Given all this, Ritter said that a market cap “of $63 billion ... five years from now seems like a very reasonable scenario.” 

Mark Hulbert is the founder of Hulbert Financial Digest in Annandale, Va. He has been tracking the advice of more than 160 financial newsletters since 1980.

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Malaysian banks to curb the online scams' ;Carelessness, Lease your bank account to scammers?

PETALING JAYA: Banks will introduce a new layer of security as they work closely with cyber security authorities and the police to combat the proliferation of online fraud.

Cybersecurity Malaysia said fraud cases reported to the agency had doubled from 606 in 2009 to 1,328 in 2010 and 3,142 last year.

“As of April this year, we received nearly 2,000 cases of online banking fraud,” said its CEO Lt Col (Ret) Prof Datuk Husin Jazri, who confirmed that the agency was joining forces with the Association of Banks Malaysia to combat Internet scams.

Going the extra mile: A third layer of security is to be adopted for online systems soon.

 

The agency, under the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry, will work with banks to carry out an intensive campaign to raise awareness of the scams.

The matter has become so serious that CIMB and Maybank recently made a concerted effort to warn of online banking scams by taking a full page advertisement in The Star, urging their customers to report immediately if they received a TAC (Transaction Authorisation Code) which had not been requested.

The TAC, which is sent by SMS to the registered mobile phone of the user, is the second layer of security. The first is the login credentials the username and password.

According to Macro Kiosk Bhd, the mobile service provider for 16 local banks, financial institutions might adopt a “third layer” of security for their online systems soon.

The “Third Factor Authentication” feature will detect attempts to hack into online banking accounts based on the location of the user's mobile.

“It will allow banks to detect the location of the computer used to log into the account and match it with the location of the user's mobile phone.

“For example, if the person accessing the account is found to be outside Malaysia, while the user's mobile phone is in this country, it is likely that something is not right,” said Macro Kiosk CEO Kenny Goh.

The user would then be sent an SMS to confirm if they wanted to continue with the transaction.

“This will alert the user if someone is trying to hack into his or her online banking account.”

By P. ARUNA aruna@thestar.com.my

Hectic lives can lead to carelessness, says cyber cop

PETALING JAYA: It is not always greed or ignorance that leads people to become victims of online scams. Sometimes, a hectic schedule could be the cause.

“Due to our busy schedules, we tend to overlook or forget to be wary of online fraud ... until it happens to us,” said Cybersecurity Malaysia CEO Lt Col (Ret) Prof Datuk Husin Jazri.

He related an incident involving a professional who ended up losing all the money in his bank account within minutes.

“He was about to go out for a meeting when he decided to quickly check his e-mail before leaving the office.

“He then saw one supposedly from his bank asking him to click on a link to update his account details.

“As he was in a hurry, he clicked on the link without much thought and followed the instructions as he was eager to proceed to his meeting.

“It was only much later that he remembered what he had done with the e-mail.

“Suddenly, it occurred to him that it was a hoax because he had heard about such a scam before.”

Husin said that although the victim contacted the agency, it was already too late.

He said Cybersecurity Malaysia had a two-minute video on how to avoid becoming a victim of banking scams that could be downloaded for free from its website http://www.cybersafe.my/video/banking/Banking.wmv.

He said scammers were always “up-to-date” and took advantage of the latest banking trends and offers.

“When a bank launches a mobile banking service, the scammer will also launch a new trick to cheat mobile banking users.

“This year, several new malware known as mobile banking trojans that mimic mobile banking applications have emerged,” he said.

He advised users to pay close attention to security messages posted on online banking websites.

“These initiatives are to help you, they are for your benefit,” said Husin

It doesn’t pay to lease your bank account to scammers

GEORGE TOWN: Two civil servants were nabbed for their alleged involvement in a ‘Macau-scam’ where the victims were cheated of millions of ringgit here.

Both of them were among three people arrested by the police on the mainland.

Penang Commercial Crime Department chief Asst Comm Roslee Chik said the suspects, in their 20s and 30s, had allowed the syndicate members to use their bank accounts for ‘illicit’ money to be deposited.

He said initial investigations showed that the suspects were given commissions by the syndicate for leasing out their accounts.

ACP Roslee said the syndicate members would impersonate personnel from the Home Ministry, Bukit Aman and Bank Negara.

“They use the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, to replicate phone numbers of the police, Bank Negara and other govern­ment agencies to call family members of those implicated in criminal activities overseas.

“The family members would then be told to transfer their money into an account given by the syndicate members, so that the family would not have their assets or bank accounts frozen by the authorities,” he said yesterday.

ACP Roslee said during a press conference at the state police headquarters here that police were still tracking the mastermind behind the scam.

He also said the case was being investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating.

He added that police were looking for Nazarime Siran, 29, to help in investigation into cheating cases involving the sale of second-hand cars.

Malaysian GDP grew 4.7% in Q1, 2012

Malaysia's economic growth slowed to 4.7 percent in the first quarter, the government said Wednesday, due to weakening exports sparked by a stuttering global economy and debt woes in Europe.

The slower expansion in the export-dependent Southeast Asian country came after the economy grew at a 5.2 percent clip in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Malaysia is one of the fastest growing developing countries

"Domestic demand remained firm, supported by both private and public sector economic activity, while exports moderated amid weaker external demand," Bank Negara, the central bank, said in a statement.

The bank has projected growth to expand four to five percent this year, slower than the 5.1 percent seen in 2011.

Economists said the slower growth indicated that the economy was "moderating at a better pace than expected" in light of the eurozone crisis.

"One of the headwinds hitting not just Malaysia but also regional economies is the very weak growth in Europe with some countries mired in recession," said Yeah Kim Leng, chief economist with financial research firm RAM Holdings.

"The concern here is of course the slowdown is affecting Asian exports including Malaysia, given its sizeable export sector."

But Yeah said he expected the Malaysian economy to grow at 4.6 percent in 2012, backed by strong domestic demand.

In early May, the central bank kept its key interest rate at 3.0 percent for the sixth time in a row to drive domestic demand.

Inflation was 2.3 percent in the first quarter and is expected to moderate to 2.5-3.0 percent for 2012 amid lower global commodity prices and modest growth in domestic demand.

The central bank said that while the challenging external environment would remain a risk to Malaysia's growth prospects, "domestic demand is expected to remain resilient".

Prime Minister Najib Razak, who must call fresh elections by April 2013 and faces a strengthening opposition, has set a goal of Malaysia becoming a "high-income developed nation" by 2020.

He said last year that annual growth of at least 6.0 percent was needed to achieve that.

Under the plan, Najib aims to double per capita income to 48,000 ringgit ($16,000) by 2020.

The government has promised major infrastructure projects and financial market liberalisation to attract foreign investment and boost growth, but critics say the results have been limited.

United we stand, divided we fall in South China Sea?

The continuing standoff between China and the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island) is a reminder that Asean needs to get its act together sooner rather than later.

THE South China Sea, spread over 3.6 million sq km, has long been a hotbed of overlapping bilateral and multilateral territorial claims.

China claims “indisputable sovereignty” over three-fourths of the South China Sea, including the Paracel and Spratly group of islands, the Macclesfield Bank and the Scarborough Shoal. Parts of the Spratly islands are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The Paracels are claimed by China and Vietnam while the Scarborough Shoal involves the Philippines and China.

What makes these claims significant, and complicated, is the real possibility that the South China Sea may contain some of the world’s most significant deposits of oil and gas. Some estimates suggest that the region may contain as much as 20-30 billion tonnes of oil or 12% of global reserves.

Earlier this year, the Philippines invited foreign companies to drill for oil in the Scarborough Shoal area. China immediately condemned the move. The People’s Daily, in an editorial, even went so far as to call for “substantial moves, such as economic sanctions, to counter aggression from the Philippines”.

China has repeatedly stated that it wants to settle these conflicting claims through peaceful negotiations. However, it has not been averse to using force when challenged; it forcibly took the Paracels and seven of the Spratly islands from Vietnam following skirmishes in 1974 and 1988, respectively.

This stands in contrast to the peaceful resolution of island disputes between Malaysia and Singapore, and Malaysia and Indonesia, through the auspices of the International Court of Justice.

Malaysia and Thailand also set a sterling example in 1979 by agreeing to put aside overlapping boundary claims in the Gulf of Thailand and jointly exploiting oil resources there, a win-win situation for both sides. A similar agreement was signed between Malaysia and Vietnam in 1992.

Territorial sovereignty can, of course, be a highly emotive issue. Nations often work themselves into a frenzy and go to great lengths to defend a pile of rock, a shoal or a frozen bit of mountain.

India and Pakistan, for example, have squared off against each other for more than 20 years over a worthless patch of ice in the Himalayas, 5,700m above sea level.

More soldiers have died of harsh weather conditions than actual combat but the madness goes on with no end in sight.

In 1996, Asean ministers, recognising the potential for conflict arising from overlapping claims in the South China Sea, agreed to negotiate a regional framework for managing the issue. It has been a difficult process.

In 2002, Asean and China managed only a joint declaration committing themselves to the peaceful resolution of their territorial disputes. It has not, however, prevented tense situations from developing as we have seen in the Scarborough Shoal.

Understandably, Asean is extremely wary of upsetting China. China has become too big, too powerful, too overwhelming to antagonise.

At the same time, Asean is also deeply divided on the question of how to respond to issues that are strictly bilateral in nature or limited to just a few of its members.

The Philippines, for example, has long pressed for a tougher Asean position in order to strengthen its hand vis-à-vis China, something that other Asean countries have been reluctant to endorse fearing it will only lead to further confrontation.

There is, in fact, a sense within Asean that the Philippines has mismanaged its handling of the issue, a view that is also shared by quite a few Filipino commentators. Now that the United States has signalled its reluctance to be drawn into the dispute, Asean leaders are hoping Manila will reassess its position.

Asean needs to realise, however, that its greatest strength in dealing with China or any one else for that matter, on this or any other issue, is its own unity and solidarity. United it stands, divided it falls.

All issues that affect regional security, whether bilateral or multilateral in nature, need to be managed together for the good of the whole Asean community.

Asean leaders must, therefore, find common purpose to help develop an effective framework to resolve these kinds of disputes.

In the end, the options, short of war, in the South China Sea are limited.

China and the Asean countries can put aside their competing claims and jointly work to exploit the resources of the South China Sea, as Malaysia and Thailand have done, or resort to international arbitration.

The former could well lead to a real zone of peace, cooperation and prosperity and cement the already burgeoning relations between China and the Asean countries. The latter is bound to leave sore losers and a divided region.

For China, a win-win solution with Asean will also undercut efforts by other powers to exploit regional fears of China in an attempt to build new alliances aimed at Beijing.

Whatever it is, the worst thing Asean and China can do is to let the issue fester.

By Dennis Ignatius Diplomatically Speaking

> Datuk Dennis Ignatius is a 36-year veteran of the Malaysian foreign service. He has served in London, Beijing and Washington and was ambassador to Chile and Argentina. He was twice Undersecretary for American Affairs. He retired as High Commis­sioner to Canada in July 2008.

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