Demise of the China Stationary CEO

First of its kind change of boardroom report I read

Question is when did he actually pass?

China Stationary - buying by company selling by owner.

Following my post of China Stationary Limited on 31 May 2013, the price of CSL have dropped from 0.35 to 0.20 currently (42% drop!).

While this experiment of mine in China share have not panned out too well (my average price is 0.305) I found their latest move to be quiet perplexing.

1) Majority shareholder selling out
The majority shareholder have recently been disposing of its share in a series of transaction. The majority shareholder's latest shareholding today is approximately 30.8%, down from 66.9% in January.

2) Buyback
The company have initiated a buyback recently with the purchase of 9M shares at 0.205 last week. I don't know how to analyse this latest move but a buyback at this price is definitely accretive to shareholder - I hope the company will undertake more buyback.

Based on the net cash position of the company, the disposal by majority shareholder defies logic. It suggest that the majority shareholder think the company is less worth than the amount of cash the company claim to have.

The buyback and the disposal is opposite move by what essentially is the same set of players in this game, this exercise contrast with the move by YTLP.

I will retain my small portfolio of CSL - but would not care to add to them. My gut feeling is telling me to cut loss, yet I remain curious about the contrasting move by the management.

China Stationary - how to value this company?

From a traditional valuation matrix, China Stationary is screaming value value value! But for the "China" factor.. it should be worth a hell of alot more.

Based on its 2012 audited account and its Q1 2013 result announcement, I see a few very attractive point about the company:

1) Strong net operational cashflow generation 
Approximately RM291 million in FY 2012 [and RM79 million in Q1 2013 (RM316M annualised)] against RM33million in investing cashflow giving it approximately RM258 million in free cash flow per annum..

2) Strong balance sheet... 
Its audited cash balance at 31 December 2012 is approximately RM 944 million against total liability of approximately RM110 million, giving a net cash position of RM 834 million. There's also various receivable, inventory, fixed asset.. but for the purpose of this exercise I've assumed no recoverable value from these assets.

3) Dividend 
Based on its short track record listed on Bursa, they've been paying regular dividend... 0.018 interim dividend was granted back in October 2012 and another 0.016 will be approved as final dividend.. giving a total dividend of 0.034, which is a yield of approximately 9.7% based on the current price of approximately 0.35.

These dividend are paid out of operational cashflow.

4) Earning yield
Based on 2012 audited account, the company generated approximately RM232million of profit. Based on current price of RM0.35, the PE is less than 1.9X.

5) Discount against IPO price.
It was listed back in Feb 2012 at RM0.95 which is approximately 4.75X historic PE. Current price is only 0.35.

6) Active purchase by major shareholder in open market.
There have also been a series of purchase by its major shareholder from the open market.. however this is also a downside, based on 2011 annual report, the free float of the share is way below 30%....


Conclusion - I don't generally like companies with poor corporate governance issue. But just like how you can overpay for a good company, there should be a price where a lousy company can be a good buy. Well that's the theory anyway, I have bought a little bit of this counter but with a very experimental mindset to this investment.

It's so cheap I can't understand it.