Biosensors

Golden Agri

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings Ltd (last:1.98 high: )
Yangzijiang Shipbuilding (Holdings) Ltd. is a shipbuilder in the People’s Republic of China. The Company produces a range of commercial vessels, mini bulk carriers, bulk carriers, multi-purpose cargo vessels, containerships, chemical tankers, offshore supply vessels, rescue and salvage vessels and lifting vessels. Its existing shipyard, which is located in Jiangyin city in the Jiangsu province of the People’s Republic of China, spans approximately 719 meters of deep-water coastline and covers an area of approximately 200,000 square meter. Its customers include shipowners based in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada. During the year ended December 31, 2006, the Company delivered a total of 16 vessels, consisting of nine containerships, six dry bulk carriers and one other vessel. In July 2007, the Company acquired an additional 25% interest in Jiangsu New Yangzi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. through the acquisition of SEAVI Advent Asia Investments (III) Ltd.

STX Pan Ocean Co Ltd (last:3.14 high: )
STX Pan Ocean Co., Ltd. is a shipping company that operates as a bulk carrier service provider and dry bulk operator. It is organized into five business segments: bulk carrier service, pure car and truck carrier service, container service, tanker service and liquefied natural gas carrier service. Under the dry bulk business, STX Pan Ocean’s cargo includes iron ore, coal, grain, steel products, sugar, cement, logs and palm and vegetable oils. As of December 31, 2006, it operated approximately 60 vessels. During the year ended December 31, 2006, it transported over 74 million tons of cargo. Its tramper service transports all kinds of dry bulk cargoes worldwide. Its large bulker service offers transportation service with respect to dry bulk cargoes, including coal, iron ore, grain and fertilizer with Panamax and Cape sized vessels. Its container service operates regular service routes connecting Korea, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and all other major ports in Southeast Asia.

Neptune Orient Lines Ltd (last:4.16 high: )
Neptune Orient Lines Limited (NOL) is an investment holding company engaged in the ownership and charter of shipping vessels, including participation in ventures related to these activities. NOL also engages in other incidental activities, such as the sales and disposals of shipping vessels, containers and related assets, as well as non-core properties and assets from time to time. It operates through two segments: Liner and Logistics. Liner includes global container transportation operations. It offers container shipping services in trade lanes, such as Transpacific, Intra-Asia, Transatlantic, Latin America and Asia-Europe. Logistics is a global logistics provider offering a network of facilities and services to support the global supply chain management needs of customers. The range of services include consolidation, global freight management, international deconsolidation and information technologies that provide information to manage supply chain activities.

Latest news

30 Nov 2007
STX Pan Ocean Co., Ltd. (“the Company”) wishes to announce that the Company has on 29 November 2007 entered into a shipbuilding contract with COSCO(Zhoushan) Shipyard Co. Ltd., China, in respect of the construction of four (4) Supramax sized bulk carriers at a price of around US$40 million per unit to be delivered in the first half of 2010. The shipbuilding contract is subject to the approval of the Board of Directors in the forthcoming Board of Directors’ Meeting.

24 Oct 2007
Singapore Exchange (“SGX”) mainboard-listed COSCO Corporation (Singapore) Limited (“COSCO” or the “Company”), a leading ship repair & marine engineering and shipping group, is pleased to announce that its 51%-owned COSCO Shipyard Group (“CSG”) had secured shipbuilding contracts
valued at US$1.34 billion (approximately S$2.0 billion) to build 29 bulk carriers from several foreign ship-owners.

08 Oct 2007
The Board of Directors of the YZJ (the “Board”) is pleased to announce that the Group had during the third quarter of 2007 after the announcing its results for the second quarter 2007 on 13 August 2007, secured shipbuilding contracts (the “Contracts”) in respect of thirteen (13) container vessels with an aggregate contract value of US$409.7 million.

The Contracts are to be delivered progressively in 2010 and 2011, and will therefore not have a significant impact on the earnings of the Group for the financial year ending 31 December 2007.

There have been various conflicting announcements from STATS ChipPAC. The latest information is as summarised below:

Marathon Asset Management owns a 5.02% stake in STATS ChipPAC and is
a substantial shareholder. It also has dispositive but non-voting authority over another 1.84% stake.

OZ Management previously owned a 5.78% stake in STATS ChipPAC.
However, OZ Management has reduced its stake to 1.87% on 23 Apr 07. OZ Management is not a substantial shareholder in STATS ChipPAC. As at 5:30pm Singapore Time on 15 May 07, Temasek Holdings’ wholly owned subsidiary Singapore Technologies Semiconductors (STS) owns or has agreed to acquire 78.6% of the issued share capital of STATS ChipPAC. In aggregate STS and Marathon owns 83.6% of STATS ChipPAC. STATS ChipPAC states that “it has no reason to believe that less than 10% of issued ordinary shares are in the hands of public”, meaning that it has not breach the free float requirement for listing on SGX.

STATS ChipPAC: The offer for STATS ChipPAC closes at 5:30pm Singapore
Time today, 18 May 07. Investors should sell in the market to lock in current prices. Poor liquidity for the stock could affect its weightage on the MSCI index.

Alternatively, investors can elect to accept the offer, which limits downside at the offer price of S$1.75.

United Test & Assembly Center: UTAC is a potential replacement for STATS ChipPAC in the MSCI index due to similar business and large free float (more than 80%). UTAC is a potential takeover target due to fragmented shareholding structure and attractive valuations. There could be possible offers from Temasek or private equity investors although we would link the huge increase in share price yesterday to the announcement

Most of the analysis indicated that this rebound is temporary and further down side is very very close. According to OCBC’s report, such correction should take at least 3 months to settle down, but this round it only take a few days, so chart wise the down trend is not finish yet.

OCBC report – Right click here to download PDF

Wrong Switch ONE : i got UTAC around 50 or 60 cents, wait for months before it hit 70+, during that time stats is kind of lagging so i decided to switch to stats, which is around 1.110 – 1.160. After a few days or weeks, UTAC shot all the way up to more than 1 dollar which stats remain lagging, i got a chance to sell it at 1.400 but greed stopped me.

After that both of them into correction period where UTAC retreat to 80 cents and stablised while stats drop to less than 1 dollars. I start to collect some UTAC from 79 cents, then average down to 73 cents, etc while holding my stats with paper loss.

Wrong Switch TWO : while stats raise up to 1.300+ i quickly clear my position on that with some profit as i think stats is just too lousy, from the surface and from the annual reports if compared to UTAC. After awhile stats retreat back while UTAC still hanging at the 80 cent range, i smile and think i make a good decision that time as i put in the money from stats to UTAC again. But stats had a good run together with Chartered after awhile, the run is so strong….. up and up even recent crash also won’t affect it much. Still remember during the wed, stats drop more than 0.10 and back up to +0.01 while the rest of stocks in a pool of blood, the buy up is so strong(although it end with a loss). Only the second day Tamasek release news that it wants to buy the remaining share of stats, at an 18% premium wow…. after it resume, stats jumped to 1.80+, that will be so so so good if i’m still holding that.

UTAC is kind of stable now, hopefully it can form a strong base at 90 cents before it hit the next target, i would say 1.13 then 1.3 (just pick from the sky).

I think it is reasonable for Tamasek to take over stats, then do a merger with UTAC, then de-list stats. This can combine strength of two companies and give exposure and extra market segment to stats. In this case, Tamasek will hold CSM + STATSChpUTAC, win win situation with great market share.

May be this time i should stop making any switch and wait for the merger LOL.

For the year to March 2007 and 2008, OCBC forecasts DES sales at Biosensors to grow 101 pct and 388 pct year-on-year, respectively. The brokerage also noted that the positive clinical feedback for the company’s DES technology and its recent collaborative agreement with JW Medical Systems to market DES products in China bode well for Biosensors as it works towards a polymer-free DES and benefit from the lower manufacturing costs and JW Medical’s distribution networks in china.

CIMB-GK Research says it has raised its rating for the semiconductor sector here to “overweight” from “hold,” saying that strong fundamentals and the peaking of the interest rate cycle next year would support increases in the valuations of stocks in the sector. “We expect the recent breakout from trough valuations of near book values to expand further in 2007, albeit with a near-term correction in light of [the] recent strong run-up,” CIMB-GK analyst Khoo Chen Hsung said in a note. “The sector is in better shape entering 2007 than [it was] for most of 2006, and we are now at the peak of the interest rate cycle, compared to a rising rate environment in 2006,” he said.

The brokerage has raised its target prices for Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd to 1.65 sgd from 1.39 sgd and for STATS ChipPAC to 1.53 sgd from 1.28 sgd, saying these are its top picks in the sector.

Credit Suisse
Credit Suisse said it raised its target price for STATS ChipPAC to 1.66 sgd per share from 1.36 while keeping its “outperform” call on the stock to reflect its earnings upgrade for the firm. The brokerage has raised its earnings estimate for the firm by 7-8 pct for 2007 and 2008 on the back of increased gross margin assumptions. It noted that the news that private equity firm the Carlyle Group is in talks to acquire Taiwan’s Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE) for 5.46 bln usd was also positive for the industry as well as the company. “If ASE gets delisted, we believe STATS is the natural second choice for investors looking for back-end exposure. This should help drive a re-rating, especially as STATS’ fundamental improvements begin to show through,” Credit Suisse said in a note. At 2.27 pm, STATS ChipPAC was down 0.04 sgd or 3.23 pct at 1.20 on brisk volume of 15.54 mln shares.

OCBC Investment Research
OCBC Investment Research says it has raised its rating for STATS ChipPAC to “buy” from “hold” and increased its fair value for the stock to 1.16 sgd per share from 1.05 sgd because of the outlook for the company. The company reported today a net profit of 18.5 mln usd for the third quarter, reversing the net loss of 1.01 mln usd it made a year earlier. Sales rose 31.8 pct year-on-year to 397.11 mln usd and margins increased on the back of reduced operating costs. In the fourth quarter, the firm expects revenue to rise 1-6 pct quarter-on-quarter. OCBC Investment Research analyst Carey Wong said in note: “Growth drivers are expected to come from the recovery in the PC segment as STATS would be embarking on two new gaming-related programs, although it noted that the communications segment could still see some customers making inventory adjustments.” He added: “While the recovery is nowhere as robust as the traditional double-digit ramp-up, we think that there may not be a big seasonal slowdown in [the] first quarter [of] 2007 either.” OCBC Investment Research has revised upwards its estimates of STATS ChipPAC’s net profit for this year by 8.8 pct to 72.4 mln usd and for next year by 13.2 pct to 91.2 mln usd. At the end of morning trading here, STATS ChipPAC stock was down 0.005 sgd or 0.51 pct at 0.98, on volume of 2.41 mln shares.

ASE is the world’s largest test and assembly house, with a clientele that
includes ATI Technologies, Qualcomm Inc. and Freescale Semiconductor.
Chairman and chief executive, Jason Chang, has already agreed to sell his
18 percent stake to a consortium led by Carlyle, the companies said Friday.

Carlyle said the deal will increase ASE’s chances of winning more
outsourcing business from other companies it owns, such as Freescale, as
well as other firms. That would increase ASE’s lead over Taiwan rival
Siliconware Precision Industries Ltd., U.S.-based Amkor Technology Inc. and
Singapore’s STATS ChipPAC Ltd.

Analysts are speculating that Carlyle and Chang, who will retain his
leadership position, have already agreed to set up the new entity as a
non-Taiwanese firm and list it on another stock exchange, such as Hong
Kong. By registering ASE as a foreign company, it would not be governed by
Taiwan rules that severely restrict technology investments in China.