YTL Cement, AirAsia Thai, PetOne

Some of YTL Cements minority shareholders are still holding on to their shares, event though they will be delisted. I like that. According to this article in The Edge, YTL Corp owns 93.2% of YTL Cement shares, while it needs 94.7% to compulsory acquire them. Even then, minority shareholders might object and go to court.

Minority shareholders will still be protected under the Company's act, but not under the Listing guidelines of Bursa Malaysia. I own many shares in unlisted Malaysian companies, and knowing that there is no Bursa Malaysia or Securities Commission to help is actually a plus. I have learned to come up for my own interest instead of issuing complaints to the authorities that lead to nowhere. In certain areas (like Related Party Transactions), shareholders have quite some power. There will not be many minority shareholders, and it is normal to band together, which is almost impossible to do in a listed company. The only thing that is really disadvantageous is a ready market to sell ones shares on, and for many people that will be a big negative.


AirAsia Thailand will be listed somewhere in July 2012. At least that is the plan, as announced in The Star. But plans often change whenever AirAsia is involved.

"AirAsia Thai has been operationally profitable since the second quarter of 2010, based on the notes to the accounts of AirAsia. However, AirAsia has not been able to recognise these profits due to accumulated losses of these units that have yet to be reversed to zero."

In other words, over its lifetime AirAsia Thai has actually lost money. It will be interesting to read the IPO document.


PetOne is reprimanded by Bursa Malaysia:

"The RM3.737mil difference was a deviation of 360% mainly due to the oversight of the company to provide for the depreciation value of vessel, failure to recognise rebate payable arising from lease agreements and doubtful debts in that financial year."

It is a small amount of money, but still good that Bursa Malaysia is on top of this. However, I would like to see the same kind of commitment towards companies that are not on the fringe, like blue chips, GLC's etc. On average they might have arranged things better, but they are not exactly flawless either.