Year: 2008

Categories
IPO

Notes reading SPRD annual report

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Last Updated on August 14, 2008 by stlplace

(Update July 8) More about the value of SPRD. Last month Datang sold its 32.1% stake in TD chip maker T3G, for 122 m CNY. This values T3G at (122m) / 32.1% = 380 m CNY. That’s $54.3 m (assume $1 = 7 CNY), and I will use that number for the TD business of SPRD. From the outcome of two rounds of China Mobile TD handset bidding, we can say SPRD TD biz is about the size of T3G. As of March 31 2008 SPRD has $97 m in cash, minus total current liabilities $28 m, that’s a net cash of $69 m. As of July 8 the market cap is $199.85 m ($4.63 per share), that values the 2.5G/2.75G business of SPRD at $76.55 m (=199.85 – 54.3 – 69). Note the revenue of last 12 months is $158.80 m, and the company was profitable.

(Original) First, on the book value. According to Yahoo Finance and company Q1 2008 financials, its book value (equity) is $257.5 m (4.858 per ADR/share), market cap as of July 3rd is $192.94 m ($4.47 per share). So the price book ratio is 0.92 (=4.47/4.858).

Now some interesting stuff I read from its annual report:

1) Page 39, Customers: For 2006, one customer accounted for 14.5% of our revenue, and no other single customer accounted for 10.0% or more of our revenue. For 2007, two customers each accounted for more than 10.0% of our revenue: 37.1% and 10.6% respectively. As our business expands, we expect our overall customer composition as well as the identity and concentration of our top customers to change from period to period.

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Categories
IPO

Pain in SpreadTrum

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on July 2, 2008 by stlplace

Obviously I pulled trigger too earlier on this one, SpreadTrum Communications (Nasdaq: SPRD).

SPRD SpreadTrum chip pic

Here is a Speadsheet which has the revenue numbers for recent quarters. I think one reason for the continued pressure is the slow cell phone market, as indicated by the shipments slowdown of MediaTek, a bigger rival of Spread.

My current plan: sell some before its Q2 ER. The company revenue guidance for Q2 was $39 to 40 million. It could miss because of challenging macro economy condition and intensified handset market.

BTW, this morning I sold the Yahoo shares which I bought it yesterday.

Categories
Stocks

Got some Yahoo YHOO today

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on July 7, 2008 by stlplace

(Update July 7) Microsoft and Carl Icahn appeared to team up and will try to ouster the current board, esp. CEO Jerry Yang. I don’t think the current board and management is toasted because:

1) Two co-founders Jerry Yang, David Falio, along with their friends Softbank, Alibaba have more shares than Carl Icahn and his friends;

2) They will fight for the support for institutional shareholders, such as Legg Mason Bill Miller etc. Some of the institutional shareholders bought the YHOO shares much higher than the price Carl Icahn bought recently. Unless there is a liquidity problem, those “higher cost” YHOO share holders will hold on it and try to get a higher exit price.

(Original) Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) shares are back to pre-Microsoft bid days today. So I went ahead of grab some shares.

The buzz on merger and proxy fight aside, I think the business and the brand of Yahoo worth more than the stock price today. Interestingly Yahoo board and management put up this power point presentation at SEC web site, to persude stock holders not to side with Carl Icahn’s proxy fight.

Yahoo headquarter Santa Clara pic
(Source: business week)

Categories
Investing

Six years ago

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on July 1, 2008 by stlplace

Recent market turmoil reminds me 6 years ago: Enron, WorldCom and Tyco scandals are all in the news. Even blue chip names like GE and Xerox have some corporate governance problems. GE gave excessive benifits to retired chairman Jack Welch, the benifits including Manhantan condo, free corporate jets, season tickets to Yankee baseball games etc. Xerox had to re-state its financial statements (I remember got this news from Chinese newspaper when I was in Shanghai, summer 2002). It seems the corporate bean counters can not get the numbers right. That’s when I started to invest in the US stock market (sharebuilder), although in very small amount.

Shortly after we got Sabane Oxly Act, which targets the corporate internal control and financial reporting (GAPP). I remember in dot com days all the internet companies used “pro formula” (non GAPP) to tell the fairy tales to the investors. April 2003, US invaded Iraq. The US stock market bottomed there, and took off until the recent sub prime debacle.

When will the current bear market bottom? I don’t know. But one thing I know is the market go down, and goes up…all the time, as said by famous fund manager Peter Lynch (Lynch’s take on market, mp3, 5 mins)

Categories
Life

Most expensive lunch?

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on July 8, 2008 by stlplace

This is probablly the most expensive lunch: Chinese fund manager Zhao Dan Yang won the Buffett lunch bid for $2.1 million (International Herald Tribune). The proceeds benifit Glide foundation, a San Francisco based charity formerly supported by Warren Buffett former wife Susan Buffett (Susan passed away in 2005?).

My 2 cents
I was surprised by the amount initially. This amount is almost 3 times of last year winning bid. Perhaps because Buffett is getting older? Also Mr. Zhao must have significant personal wealth to pull off that, no small change for fund managers, because fund managers make money from fees and profit sharing (2-20 rule, I will write more about fund manager fee structure later).

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Categories
Saint Louis

How to ride the MetroBus?

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on June 29, 2008 by stlplace

This morning I need to drop my car at repair shop for the day. Not wanting to walk back, or disturb my friend, I decided to ride the bus. I did some research about the bus last night. I used the trip finder to find the route, schedule. I tried it: from “Olive Blvd at Lindbergh Blvd”, to “Olive Blvd at Tempo Dr.” It gives me the time, I found 8:04 AM or 8:45 AM bus will fit me.

Things worked out well as I expected. Shortly after I drop the car, I waited at the Olive and Manson, and I saw the 8:04 AM bus coming. I got on the bus and paid $1.75. The ride took about 10 minutes. To my surprise, there are quite a few people riding the bus.

I understand right now it’s still impractical for me to take the bus to work. But what if everyone started to ride the bus, amid the rising fuel price? As the Addidas ad says “Impossible is nothing”. Maybe this thing is possible.

Reference:
MetroBus map and ruotes

Categories
gadgets

iPhone vs. Blackberry Bold

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on June 28, 2008 by stlplace

From YouTube, author: the iPhone blog

BTW, I found other blackberry videos at YouTube to be good (authors: phonescoop, crackberry).

Categories
Investing Shanghai Composite

Bottom fishing time?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on June 28, 2008 by stlplace

Yesterday was another brutal day in the Wall Street, or the Bay Street (Toronto), or SSE (Shanghai Securities Exchange). According to the number, the Dow is now officially in bear territory. General Motor (NYSE:GM), a Dow component and an American icon, hit 53 years low. It closed at $11.43. So, should we go bottom fishing?

I am not a market timer, nor do I like to predict the market trend. But I noticed another interesting article from my friend Wang Jianshuo’s blog: Stock Market Big Drop. Note Jianshuo is not into stock market, a rare type in Shanghai. In other words, when people like Jianshuo started to pay attention to the market, things are either really good or bad (noteworthy). So, the 1 million dollar question: should we go bottom fishing? My answer is be careful, because if we don’t we will catch some falling knives instead 🙁

Some ideas for bottom fishing

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Categories
gadgets

It’s the software, smartphone?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on June 27, 2008 by stlplace

I don’t have a smartphone, but I used to have Palm m100 (original), and Palm Tungsten E. I did not use it for power point, calendar or anything serious, the main functionality I used is its real player. It got 128 M SD card, so I can store about 30 songs on it.

Palm Tungsten E2 pic

Today’s smart phone is much more sohpiscated. Besides traditional voice capability, email, messaging (instant, text and multimedia), some phones also got web browsing, MP3/video playback, camera and video capturing, word/excel/power point editing. As I understand some blackberry can do SAP, IBM Lotus, or used as a remote control for home applicance (source: RIM June 25 conference call).

Market

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Categories
gadgets

RIM: bear case, bull case

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on June 26, 2008 by stlplace

Bear case
RIM (Nasdaq: RIMM) missed both top line and bottom line in Q1, and issued not so strong outlook for Q2. Read news from Reuters for more details. Q1 revenue is $2.24 b vs. expected $2.27 b; earning was $0.84 vs. 0.85. While I think missing of bottom line is understandable because of spending in R&D, the revenue miss is not because its competitor iPhone was sold out going into the end of quarter.

Competition from iPhone will intensify. New 3G iPhone will be launched on July 11, and it is deceptively priced at $199. The reason I said “deceptively” is the real owner cost is much higher (see Christopher Null, How the half-price iPhone 3G actually costs you more).

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