Friday, June 26, 2009

iCapital: One Of The Top Five Fund Managers In The World Lost 79% In One Single Investment!

Indulge in me for a moment.

In A Quick Look At iCapital's Annual Report 2008

Now if we click that link above and open the attached pdf file, near the end of the report, we will see the following.

WOW! It's more mind boggling really.

Cost of their ' so-called value investment' in that one share is 17.883 million. And they sold this investment for a lost. How much did they lose? Just 14 million!!!!! (See iCapital Lost 14 Million In Axiata Without Explaining Why )

Now if my calculator is not faulty, this looks like an investment loss of 79%.

Hmm.. wasn't it just a month ago there was a huge article on Tan Teng Boo?

Found it.

Up Close and Personal with Tan Teng Boo

There was this interesting boasting statement printed that I remember. :p2

  • “I’m pretty damn good at what I do. I would say I am one of the top five fund managers in the world. It is a pity that people don’t really recognise that,” says Tan in such a matter-of-fact manner, that it’s almost hard to construe that as boasting.

Hmmm.... and this 'one of the top five fund managers in THE WORLD' has just lost 79% of its investment in one single stock!

Well isn't this just mind bloggling?

Malaysia Can!

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Totally agree with you. Mr Tan has a lot of explaining to do. The ball is in his court. Let's see whether he has the decency to reply to you.

Moolah said...

ian,

I am but a nobody.

There's no need for TTB to reply to me.

But there's an urgent need to reply to all share owners of iCapital.biz.

You know, if I put it in a school kid and parent perspective. School kid comes home from school. And the school kid tells the parent is that his/her marks in English is only 21 out of 100. Lost 79%.

That's all the kid tells.

Nothing more.

Is this correct?

Is this acceptable?

Now surely, the parent would demand an explanation, yes?

Same with iCapital's fund.

Losing 79% in one single stock investment is simply too much!

By not even explaining simply shows no respect.

Kris said...

I think one of the key perception that the public has due to publicity given to ICap is its NAV vs share price.

Its NAV is always higher than its stock price. Thus the public is "educated", that they are buying the fund a somewhat large discount.Thus the "sure win" mentality.

Something for you to blog about. If you had'nt.. Hehehe

Moolah said...

Well..if I do that I could end up writing a book.


:D

kinwing said...

i think just dun b too harsh to TTB. human does make mistake, it is matter tat how to minimise of making mistake.

i still consider TTB is 1 of the best fund manager in MY, notstanding i cant prove whether he is world-class FM or not.

by having 1 lousy picks in the portfolio doesnt tarnish much the performance of the portfolio (btw, the disposal lost of Axiata is around 11 mil, not 14 mil). at least icap still deliver a better return than most of the funds in MY, with a CAGR of 17% for the NAV.

kinwing

Moolah said...

KimWing,

Was I being harsh on TTB?

You know for someone who publicly called Warren Buffett to be lousy and for one who claimed that he's one of the Top Five Fund Managers In THE WORLD, then he should be ready to take on all CRITICISM - even if they are harsh.

So how harsh was I?

I believed as a fund manager he owes it all to the fund shareholders the reason why he sold at such a huge loss.

That's only the RIGHT thing to do.

And if that was harsh, I have nothing else to say.

Unknown said...

Few things here. First of all, IMHO a fund manager shouldn't be judged by just 1 stock selection. There's no fund manager on this earth that can make positive return on all stocks that s/he chosen. Surely there are some negative return, some positive return.

79% loss is definitely a big loss. But can I know how did u get 79%? Was it -14.16/17.883? If that's the case, I think it's wrong. First of all, the 14.16 is REALISED loss. That means, the cost (for the 14.16 loss) figure is no longer included in the 17.883cost! So it's wrong to calculate it that way! The only thing that can be said, it's that they are sitting on 14% paper loss now (-2.483/17.883). Furthermore, recall that Axiata had a rights issue earlier on. So one need to very extra careful with the calculation.

Next, a fund manager should be evaulated based on the performance of his/her portfolio. For instance, he might be making big losses for Axiata, but he can also be making huge return on other stocks! Hence it's possible for his overall return to be much better (or worse).

And to be technically correct, to evaulate a fund manager, his/her performance must be compared to a benchmark, e.g. KLCI. It's unfair to blame a fund manager if he lose 20% when the market collapse 80%!

Moolah said...

Ah Beng,

Firstly, if you follow all my writings, I always acknowledged I am flawed. And so I find it not surprising that you folks are questioning the exact percentage lost.

So what's the exact percentage lost?

Was iCapital clear and precise enough in their earnings notes so that there were no ambiguity?

Of course I could be flwaed in my reading of his notes. If so, sorry dude.

And recgarding the quality of iCapital as a fund manager.

Note.. I do not think I have state that iCapital is no good, have I?

I have only questioned its actions. And for Axiata, it lost huge money (how many percent ah?) and yet as a so-called value investor, it chose not to give any explanation.

Is this correct?

No it's not for me and this is flwaed view.

ps: in this posting, I only highligted how TTB boasted in the media how it was amongst the best in the world.

ps: how ironic. It told the public that a stock stempede was going to happen. So why did it make the selling if he was so bullish? Hmm.. just like the previous year, he told everyone he was bullish but instead he was selling.

friend1300 said...

axiata is not a good stock. and ttb need to explain. not keep quiet.