The Unnecessary Job

Every now and then, the issue of whether RI is elite/guilty of elitism gets debated in the news forum. The substance of the debate is predictably stale. Arguments that RI is elitist usually fall along these lines: RI caters to rich kids. In 2015, then RI Principal Chan Poh Meng alleged that RI is now a middle-class school. Presumably, because a majority of its students hail from landed houses or private condominiums RI discriminates by taking in only the brightest of each PSLE cohort. RI reinforces or encourages a view that its students are the crème de la crème. In a letter to TODAY, writers Daniel Yap and Luke Lu had this to say: The pressing concern for RI is not inclusivity, but representation. It is not a direct result of RI's status as elite, but an outcome of the larger culture and environment. This was former principal Chan Poh Meng's concern when he said that RI was becoming "insular", not "truly representative of Singapore", an...

It is that time of the year again. Working on weekends to hit record billables for the firm, in exchange for getting extra pay. Honestly, I had thought that this was only going to start in June. Hence, I had strapped myself down for a long, harsh June winter. But it seems like winter came early. Well, what does it matter? Nothing stands in the way between me and FI.  So rise up Dovahkiin! I am going FUS RO DAH your ass so hard. Die Billables! Harsh winters will always come. Hence, one should always pick stocks that can weather tough times. Just like picking a Skyrim class - always go for stealth archer, and not some lame ass one-handed sword wielder.  Stealth archers own everyone, whereas one-handed specialists die before that dragon even lands (on legendary difficulty).  On that note, it is worthwhile pointing out that Singtel did poorly for their Q4 (ended Mar 2018) results. Net profit was down a whopping 19% y-o-y.  The management attributed that to a...

Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust (FLT), one of the crown jewels in my portfolio, announced that it raised $329 mil via a private placement. This private placement saw the issuance of 333.2 million shares at $0.987 per share (about a 5.4% discount over the VWAP as at 9 May). The rest of the funding required for the purchase of its European assets will come from a preferential share offering to existing unit holders. Specifically, there is a 10 for 1 share offering, which would be priced between 0.942 and 0.967. Existing shareholders may subscribe for their allotment from 23 May . I currently hold 170,000 FLT shares, and should theoretically be entitled to purchase another 17,000 shares at the discounted price. I will certainly try to get more if at all possible. This announcement was a little bit disappointing. It would have been preferable if the private placement tranche was not nearly twice the size of the preferential share offering to existing unitholders, which leads...