THE RULES HAVE CHANGED
creaf is still buying back their shares!!!!!
biz.yahoo.com
biz.yahoo.com
Wednesday February 16, 6:19 am Eastern Time
Creative to step up Internet investments
SINGAPORE, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Singapore's Creative Technology Ltd (NasdaqNM:CREAF - news) plans to increase its investments in Internet start-ups, following a high rate of success and quick returns from it venture capital activities this year, chairman and chief executive officer Sim Wong Hoo said on Wednesday.
Creative, likened by investors to successful Internet investment firms like Japan's SoftBank , had put aside $100 million last year for Internet investments.
It already spent $70 million in 20 firms and expects to finish the balance $30 million in the quarter ending in March.
``We will probably look to invest in a similar amount when the venture fund is finished,' Sim said in an interview with Reuters.
He said the fund was part of Creative's strategy to transform itself from being just a manufacturer of audio sound cards for personal computers into an Internet company.
INTERNET GAINS EXCITE
Creative's share price doubled in three months to a high of S$44.50 last week after it announced unrealised profit gains of $150 million from Internet investments in the second quarter.
The gains came mainly from the successful initial public offering of MediaRing.com .
``We had gains in the past in Internet investments but we never emphasised it. But in the last quarter, we wanted to show that we were executing our Creative dot.com strategy,' Sim said.
Sim said Creative's unique strength was its ability to offer a very large installed customer base of 100 million Creative sound card users to Internet companies.
``Everybody says they are value-added investors and so we say we are super value-added. There is no parallel...,' he said.
Going forward, Sim said he would prefer to invest in Internet companies which had some synergies with Creative but did not rule out start-ups with good ideas.
He also said the recent re-rating of Creative's share price ``was long overdue'
Last October, the 44-year old Sim who founded Creative 19 years ago, said the shares were undervalued trading at S$18.00, at a price earnings multiple of about seven times.
The shares have since more than doubled and closed at S$39.20, down S$2.30 on Wednesday.
Sim declined to comment on whether the shares were trading at fair value. ``I think it is up to the market to decide.'
BUYBACK PLANS CONTINUE
He also said the company would continue to buy back its shares depending on market conditions.
The company bought back 11 million Creative shares since the programme started in November in 1998. It recently got a fresh mandate to buy up to 10 percent, or about eight million shares, in the company in the current fiscal year.
Sim added there were no plans for a stock split for Creative, the most highly-priced Singapore stock in absolute value.
``There is no plan for a stock split at the moment and that is not our focus at the moment. It is on executing our strategy,'
show us the monies$$$$$, mr. sim
the return of power ranger :)
PR - the rules have changed! |
