Charger Award — 7 Things We Learnt

WITH so much information and tips shared at the inaugural Charger Award organised by STORM.SG we help you pick out 7 things that stood out.

Are TITs next?

Clemen Chiang, CEO, Spiking lifts the lid on the curiously named TITs rumour that’s been making the rounds in the industry.

The SGX already boasts three ‘darling’ verticals — digital stocks, retail stocks, and REITs. But what new offerings will the future bring? What new type of stock is expected to titillate the stock exchange and its hungry investors?

Referencing a 2015 SGX-commissioned report from Frost & Sullivan (Investing in Financial Technology & Consumer Digital Technology Companies), Chiang suggests that the SGX’s favourite a new vertical could be Technology Investment Trusts (TITs). The new rumoured stock will be focused on technology companies, with a few grouped together to be listed as a TIT.

Cheap And Good

Kamal Samuel, Managing Director, Financial PR, urges investors to look deeper into what local companies have to offer by way of new investment opportunities.

We have a scarcity of good companies with a host of low-valuation and low-potential companies hitting the capital market. But the opportunities are there, since they are currently undervalued and underappreciated by the market.

The trend has been for foreign investors to come in and quickly realise the value in some of the stock we have available and take it up — but local investors haven’t caught on yet.

Singapore has very few good companies left, so have a look at them — focus on their balance sheets and matrices and their value will become apparent.

He suggests that mirroring the approach of private equity firms might be a good way to spot value in the market. However, Samuel warns that investors must be prepared to wade through the “garbage” in SGX’s Catalist market to unearth a gem.

Changing Ways Of The World

We cannot keep clinging to the past, warns Ku Swee Yong, CEO, International Property Advisor.

Singapore built its economy as a trade entrepot — our main focus was on oil and gas, offshore marine, and transportation logistics. We billed ourselves as a hub of the region and the world for trade and business to move through. Even in the last decade we were still talking about Singapore being part of a hub-and-spoke distribution paradigm — this is a worrying trend.

The hub-and-spoke model is already becoming irrelevant today — with technology, everything is moving point-to-point. China has also made its move to disintermediate the Strait of Malacca with the Belt and Road Initiative.

Goods from Europe are already moving directly to China. And yet, we are trying to build a mega port at Tuas!

Will it be irrelevant by the time it is completed? Can whole city-states become irrelevant? Ku asks if policy makers all have their heads buried in the sand, unable or unwilling to keep pace with the times.

Find out what the other 4 Tips are in the video.

Discussions at The Charger Award feature opinions and views from: Independent Director and Investor Chong Huai Seng; Clemen Chiang Ph.D, CEO Spiking; Kamal Samuel, Managing Director, Financial PR; Prof. Kirpal Singh, Director, Wee Kim Wee Centre, Singapore Management University; and CEO of International Property Advisor Ku Swee Yong.

NOTE: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell shares in the companies. You are advised to do your own due diligence.