Meaningful buildings

There are several buildings on Penang island which mean something to me. The first is obviously my childhood home: the house in which I grew up. And in fact, it was this house at No.10 Seang Tek Road that I lived with my parents and grandparents until I was 26 years old. There's a lot of attachment and many, many fond memories that goes with it.

The second is my secondary school building: the Penang Free School building in Green Lane where I had enjoyed seven years of schooling before stepping forth into the wide world. Again, a lot of attachment to it, and many, many fond memories too. Since 2012, I've stepped into the school premises again on countless occasions. Reliving my schooldays in a way.

The third has to be the former Ban Hin Lee Bank building in Beach Street which is now occupied by CIMB Bank. For 23 years, I was in the employment of this bank and I spent 18 years in this heritage building. So there's a lot of attachment here as well.

But there's a fourth building among two or three others that meant something to me. It could have been my primary school building, the Westlands Primary School building in Victoria Green Road or the Straits Echo building in Penang Road where I had my first meaningful employment, but no....I should refer instead to the Equatorial Penang building in Bukit Jambul on the south-eastern part of the island.

People may be curious to know why I should rank the Equatorial Penang building as one that means something to me. Well, it is because it was within the bowels of this building that I had spent eight-plus years employed at JobStreet.com. Yes, after I had resigned from Southern Bank in 2001, I joined this Internet job search company until my retirement at the end of 2009. 

For more than eight years, I crossed the bridge to reach Equatorial Penang from my residence on the mainland. Parking was always in the basement of the hotel. From there, lifts would take me either up to the ground floor where JobStreet.com was most visible through its sales, finance and administration offices. But there was also an executive search office further inside and a network control office too. I shared space with Ted Targosz, Teoh Eng Soon and Wong Yew Tuck who became good friends from my JobStreet days. 

Then several months later, I moved to the Lower Ground Fifth floor - deep down the Equatorial Penang building - to engage more with the software engineers in the research and development department of JobStreet.com. 

In those days, all the job search application software were developed from the Penang office of  JobStreet.com and the staff in this particular department probably numbered around 30 or 40 people. That's quite a large workforce to support the demands of a job search company which range from the job seekers to the companies advertising their job positions. Proprietary matching tools were developed to pair job positions with potential job seekers. part of my job was to check the correctness of the language on the website and that used for the mass emails that the company send to the job seekers. 

Working in a place such as the Equatorial Penang building gave my JobStreet.com colleagues and I plenty of opportunities to enjoy the restaurants at the hotel. Although we would usually have our lunch in Bayan Baru town, there were always occasions for celebrations and get-togethers in the hotel premises at the slightest excuse. Thus, places such as the Kampachi Japanese restaurant, the Golden Phoenix Chinese restaurant or their coffee house for lunch, The View restaurant for dinner or the Blue Moon pub to unwind after office hours. Plus, the time spent just sitting around and watching people passing by. 

I also like to mention the long and winding corridor on the Lower Ground Second Floor where the view was magnificent. Just standing there alone for five or 10 minutes, all serenely quiet and the wind sometimes blowing in the face, and looking out onto the Bukit Jambul golf course and the impressive bungalow buildings below was enough to soothe anyone's nerves. It brought me a therapeutic calm. 

All these are coming to an unfortunate end. After 32 years of being Penang's first five-star hotel in the southern reaches of the island. The management of Equatorial Penang has already informed the public that their hotel operations will cease from 10 February 2021 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The only consolation, so I hear, is that the tenants of their office block on the lower ground floors will function as normal. Nevertheless, the hotel will definitely become a much quieter place after this date.

Visiting the Penang Port

My wife and I visited the Penang Port Commission yesterday. Basically at the invitation of a close pal and former colleague whom I've known for almost 30 years now. 

In the mid-1990s, we were part of the early Internet users in Penang. Together with several others, we met rather regularly at the YMCA and Universiti Sains Malaysia to share ideas and promote online activities such as Telnet, FTP, Gopher, Newsgroups and Bulletin Boards, Internet Chats and of course, the World Wide Web.

Then he went for his further studies in Alabama, United States. He came back after graduation, joined a company (can't remember the name) somewhere in Burmah Road, later Solectron and a few others before finally joining me as a colleague in JobStreet.com. In the 2000s, JobStreet.com became the company that some of us early Internet users gravitated to.

After his stint at JobStreet.com, he joined the nascent Penang government which had just won the General Elections in 2008 and soon gained the trust of the Chief Minister. From there, he was transferred to the Penang Development Corporation. Today, he heads and is doing great work in the Penang Port Commission.

Meet Jeffrey Chew, the Commission's chairman. He was appointed to the post earlier this year. When we caught up with him yesterday, we discussed many things and he shared with us his vision for the port in Penang. Of course, with tourism taking a more forefront role in the state, there are plans to upgrade the facilities and the expansion of business there but I'm not in a position to disclose them here. I wouldn't want to spoil his fun, would I? So I will just say to be patient and wait for the announcements to come from him at the appropriate time.

But there were two things we talked about that shouldn't be out of place here. The first was the efforts to help our respective old schools. I was from Penang Free School and he was from St Xavier's Institution. Rival schools in Penang. We agreed that despite the general drop in the quality of education, our alma maters are still worth helping. As individuals, we can - and should - do something to help our respective alma maters in whatever ways we can contribute. Don't just criticise; do something to help your old schools. In Jeffrey's case, he and his school mates had raised money to hand out as annual bursaries to the needy but potential students at St Xavier's Institution for their further studies in public universities. A very noble cause.

The other matter we discussed was the problem of dementia which affects a considerable percentage of the population. We shared experiences about dementia which has affected some of our close family members. We agreed that the most affected are the caregivers: primarily the spouses of the affected dementia patients who just couldn't accept that their partners had changed and probably wouldn't be getting any better. It's all so very sad.

Payday for JobStreet (JOBST) shareholders

So today's the day. The day of the big pay-out from JobStreet.com to their shareholders. With the money from SEEK Asia now in, as payment for JobStreet.com's job portal business, the shareholders are set to receive the dividends of RM2.65 per share paid directly into their bank accounts.

But first, on 10 Dec 2014 when JobStreet.com's shares (JOBST) on the Bursa Malaysia went ex-dividend, the price of the share was adjusted from RM2.92 to RM0.29. Effectively, this meant that JOBST now qualified as a penny stock.

The RM0.29 value for a JobStreet share reflects the residual value of the company which is actually still quite substantial. JobStreet.com still has on-going investments in countries such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, and of course locally, and they have a building in Kuala Lumpur which is used to house the ex-JobStreet staff who now work for SEEK Asia.

And as penny stock goes, the JobStreet shares attracted a lot of interest on the stock market, mostly as I would believe from speculators. A total of 22,760,800 shares changed hands on that day, making it one of the most active counters on the Bursa. Even today, there is still a lot of transactions.

JobStreet's dividend history (JOBST)

I noticed that JobStreet Corporation Berhad, listed on Bursa Malaysia as JOBST, had issued their latest quarterly report on its consolidated results for the financial period that ended on 30 Sep 2014. As a former staff of JobStreet.com, I am naturally very interested to see what's happening to my former workplace especially when there is such a lot of interest in its future direction.

Now, (almost) everyone would already know that JobStreet has already finished with its final stage of disposing off its jobs portal business to SEEK Asia Investment, and in fact, the deal was concluded on the 20th of this month when SEEK Asia transferred RM1,562.8 million into JobStreet's account. On that day, JobStreet's founder, Mark Chang, stepped down as the CEO of the company.

This protracted negotiation of the Proposed Disposal of the jobs portal business by JobStreet to SEEK Asia had been going on for quite a while - since February this year - but it was not without its own nail-biting moments.

While it was generally accepted that the sale of the business would go through smoothly, it had been recognised that there could be some sticky moments with the Singapore authorities who were concerned that SEEK Asia could come to monopolise the jobs portal business in the Republic as the latter already owned JobStreet's greatest rival, JobsDB. Together, JobStreet and JobsDB would corner possibly more than 90 percent of the business in Singapore.

But after a lengthy period of fact-finding investigation - during which time, the shareholders of JobStreet were all nervously put on edge - the Competition Commission Singapore (CCS) concluded that there would be no infringement of their Singapore Competition Act (Cap. 50B) provided that SEEK Asia implemented and complied with their own Proposed Commitments and the Proposed Divestiture Commitment (which are both too lengthy for me to disclose here but can always be read from the CCS or SEEK websites). In issuing the favourable decision, CCS accepted the Proposed Commitments offered by SEEK Asia in order to address the potential competition concerns that may arise from the Proposed Disposals.

But back to this quarterly report, it more or less summarised a lot of the recent developments of the company. Amidst all the gobbledy-gook in the report is the news of the payment of the Special Single-Tier Dividend to JobStreet shareholders on Christmas Eve. Yes, the money that has been received from SEEK Asia will be returned to the shareholders and it will be worth RM2.65 per share. Although the news is welcoming indeed for clarifying the occasionally nail-biting situation, it also brings some sobering thoughts because the company that we have known since 1995 will no longer be the same anymore.

Throughout its 10 years of listing on the Bursa Malaysia, the company has been paying out dividends, but none as good as in the last two or three years. It was listed at the end of 2004 but for that year, no dividend was paid. In 2005, it declared a total dividend payment of 2.75 sen against an IPO price of 54 sen per share. In 2006, the dividend payment was a modest 1.5 sen.

In 2007, JobStreet declared a bonus issue of two ordinary shares for every ordinary share of 10 sen each, followed by an immediate consolidation of two ordinary shares of 10 sen each after the bonus issue into one new ordinary share of 20 sen each in the company. What this meant effectively was that if you had bought 10,000 shares of JobStreet at its IPO price of 54 sen in 2004, you would now end up with 15,000 shares at an adjusted IPO price of 36 sen at the end of 2007.

Subsequent to this bonus issue-cum-consolidation exercise, the company declared a total dividend payment of 5.0 sen for 2007, 3.5 sen for 2008 and 3.0 sen for 2009. In 2010, the company announced a new dividend policy to return approximately 50 percent of the company's profit after tax and minority interests to the shareholders. As a result, shareholders received dividend payments totalling 6.5 sen in 2010, 7.0 sen in 2011 and 9.25 sen in 2012.

In May 2013, there was again a new dividend policy to return up to 75 percent of the company's profit after tax and minority interests to the shareholders on a quarterly basis, and also a share split exercise in September. Dividend pay-out for that year amounted to 9.25 sen. (To receive a total dividend of 9.25 sen is akin to receiving an interest rate pay-out of 25 percent on your initial investment amount in 2004; an impressive return on investment.)

For 2014, the dividends declared for pay-out till today amounted to 5.25 sen, excluding the Special Dividend declared. But will there be a fourth interim dividend declared next year or indeed, will there be a final dividend too? Remember, JobStreet was still earning from its jobs portal business until the 20th of November when SEEK Asia finally transmitted their payment over into JobStreet's account. So we may jolly well expect the last of JobStreet's generous dividend payments to still come through.

For a person who had invested RM5,400 for 10,000 JobStreet shares in 2004, converted to 15,000 shares of 20 sen each in 2007 and 30,000 shares of 10 sen each in 2013 , he would have received back RM9,387.50 in dividends through the years. Not too bad a performance for a company that started out simply by matching jobs to job seekers way back in 1995 and grew into the finest Internet company in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and India, and at one stage also with forays into Thailand, Bangladesh and Vietnam. The company still has on-going interests in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.

Mark Chang's final message to JobStreet.com

Well, the journey's over and a new chapter unfolds. My part in the journey was comparatively small but it was still a very humble experience to have been part of this remarkable journey with my friend, Mark Chang, and I have to thank him for it. I joined JobStreet.com in June 2001 and retired in December 2009, which means that I gave my all to Mark for 8½ years of the company's 20-year existence.

The official handing over of JobStreet.com's jobs portal business to Seek Asia takes effect from tomorrow, and these are the final words from Mark who steps down today as JobStreet's chief executive officer.

Although the message was meant for the existing staff of the company (who will find themselves reporting for work tomorrow as staff of Seek Asia), Mark has requested that it be made known to all former JobStreet staff too.

So here it is, Mark's final message:

Dear colleagues,

It is almost a 20-year start-up journey for us and we are closing the deal and officially handing over the management to Seek management team. 

The most important message I want to say to you and all our former staff is "Thank you". Thank you for all your sacrifices, loyalty, hard work and unselfish contributions all these years. Other people can claim but I know you are the ones who have done all the real work. You are the real unsung heroes of our company. With you in my wing, I had confidence to compete with the best in the world and we became the most successful Internet company in this region to date and touch the lives of millions. With you, I have so much joy in my work and with you, I have found meaning in my life. A simple "Thank you" does not sound sufficient but it is through this simple "Thank you" which encompasses all my wholehearted tributes and all my best intentions to each and everyone of you. 

At the end of today, I will no longer your CEO but I will be your friend for life. I ask your forgiveness for all the wrongs I have done. It has been a wonderful journey travelling with you. We did not really change the world; instead, the world has changed us. 

I learn that real wealth is not money and the money that I earned, I will give most away for good causes. Real wealth is what money cannot buy such as health, good relationship, happiness and peace of mind. May we, the mortal and foolish ones, have the wisdom to pick the right choices.

May you find what you seek.
Mark Chang
Founder/CEO JobStreet.com

SEEK clears last hurdle in JobStreet acquisition

For several months already, ever since the announcement was made in February that JobStreet.com would divest its job portal business to SEEK Asia Investment, a subsidiary company of SEEK Australia, the shareholders in the company had been wondering when on earth can the deal be concluded. Initially, it was believed that this acquisition by SEEK would proceed rather smoothly but as the weeks rolled into months, it became clear that there was one last potential hurdle to overcome.

Ironically, this obstacle did not come from the Malaysian authorities despite JobStreet.com being public-listed on Bursa Malaysia, but from Singapore. There, the Competition Commission of Singapore was casting an eagle eye on the divestment plan as the merged entity (comprising JobStreet.com and JobsDB.com) could potentially create a monopoly business in the island republic.

In Singapore, JobStreet and JobsDB are the two biggest job portals, competing neck-and-neck for market share. SEEK Asia Investment had already owned a hundred percent share of JobsDB and in buying over the job portal business from the Singapore arm of JobStreet Singapore, CCS certainly had their reasons to be cautious. Definitely, CCS recognised that both JobStreet and JobsDB were each other’s closest competitors and they needed assurance that the merger would not give rise to "non-coordinated" effects.

To address this concern, SEEK later offered the following behavioural commitments:

a.    To address the concern that the merged entity may be able to alter the structure of the market by demanding exclusive, “lock-in” contracts which prevent customers from switching away from the merged entity, SEEK commits not to enter into exclusive agreements with employer and recruiter customers. By deterring exclusivity and lock-ins, the behavioural commitments aim to retain the current practice of multi-homing (the practice of using more than one online recruitment advertising platform) by employers and recruiters, as well as jobseekers and aims to keep barriers to entry and expansion low, thereby preserving competition in the market for online recruitment advertising services.
b.    To address the concern that the merged entity may be able to increase prices post-merger, SEEK commits to maintain current pricing of its services capped at present day rate cards or current day negotiated prices, subject to Consumer Price Index variations. By capping pricing at current levels, the behavioural commitments seek to address concerns identified by market participants during the Phase 1 and 2 reviews that the closeness of competition between the Parties may cause prices to rise post-merger.

After a lengthy period of the CCS seeking market consultations and evaluating industry feedback, during which time shareholders of JobStreet were in the dark and left wondering nervously whether the acquisition could ever be cleared at all, there is now general relief.

This item just appeared under "Company Announcements" for JobStreet.com on the Bursa Malaysia website. The good news for JobStreet shareholders is that the last hurdle of the sale of the JobStreet Singapore to SEEK Asia Investments has been overcome with the CCS granting conditional approval to the acquisition.

This announcement should be read in conjunction with the earlier announcements made on 19 February 2014, 21 February 2014, 29 April 2014, 12 May 2014, 14 May 2014, 15 May 2014, 24 June 2014, 1 July 2014, 19 August 2014, 21 August 2014 and 9 October 2014 in relation to the Proposals (“Announcements”). Unless otherwise defined, the terms used in this announcement shall have the same meaning as those defined in the said Announcements in relation to the Proposals. On behalf of the Board, Affin Hwang Investment Bank Berhad wishes to announce that CCS had, as set out in their media release dated 31 October 2014, as attached, issued a favourable decision in respect of the Proposed Disposals. The CCS concluded that the Proposed Disposals, if carried into effect, will not infringe the section 54 prohibition of the Singapore Competition Act (Cap. 50B), subject to the implementation of, and compliance by SEEK, with the Proposed Commitments and the Proposed Divestiture Commitment. In issuing the favourable decision, the CCS has accepted the Proposed Commitments offered by SEEK in order to address the potential competition concerns that may arise as a result of the Proposed Disposals. In addition, the CCS has also accepted the Proposed Divestiture Commitment offered by SEEK in order to address the potential competition concerns in respect of SEEK’s ownership and operations of jobs.com.sg in Singapore. Please refer to the attached document from the CCS with regards to the Proposed Disposals for further details. With the above favourable decision from the CCS, all the conditions precedent to the closing of the Proposed Disposals have been satisfied or waived in accordance with the terms of the SSA. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the Board expects the Proposed Disposals to be completed within November 2014 whilst the Proposed Distribution is expected to be completed by the end of 4th quarter 2014. Further details will be announced in due course. This announcement is dated 31 October 2014.

Attachments Media release_CCS Clears Proposed Acquisition of Jobstreet by SEEK .pdf 98 KB

JobStreet.com says: Do good, do well

When I noticed a large envelope in my car porch yesterday, obviously thrown there by the postman who couldn't fit it into my postbox, I never expected to see this publication inside. Here are the front and back covers:

I was thinking to myself. Ah, it's Astroboy. Now, who would be sending me a comic book? Intrigued, I turned the cover and there, a very familiar design popped out. It was the latest annual report from my old employer, JobStreet.com, or to use their public-listed name, JobStreet Corporation Berhad.

It was much the usual stuff inside, such as a joint letter from the chairman and chief executive officer to the shareholders, the financial statements and a notice of the 10th annual general meeting.

Since the company was going to divest itself of its online job portal business soon to SEEK Asia Investment Pte Ltd, the letter to the shareholders took on a rather reflective mood when it dwelt on the reasons for this decision. Read the excerpt here.

This excerpt summed up the history of JobStreet.com in a single sentence: "lt is with a tinge of sadness, but more than anything, a great sense of pride, that we see how the JobStreet.com job portal business has come of age, from a start-up in 1995, into a business courted by venture capitalists in 1999, to an IPO on the MESDAQ market in 2003 and the subsequent migration to the Main Board in 2007 before being valued at RM1.73 billion for the proposed sale."

Thus, when I read through the annual report, I could very well understand why Mark Chang, the company's founder and chief executive officer, was expressing this tinge of sadness and the great sense of pride. On my part, I also felt sad that one of the most successful companies of the digital era, one that I was a part of for eight years of my working life, was about to come to an end, albeit a satisfactory end. And I'm sure, many of my old colleagues in JobStreet.com would have similar views too.

Still, I couldn't get over their use of Astroboy on the cover of the annual report. It is perhaps unique in the history of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange that a cartoon character had been used to grace the cover of an official publication and with such an impact. Traditionalists may frown on it, saying that the cartoon cover would make light or even tarnish the formality of an annual report, but I don't agree.

If you know the history of JobStreet.com, you will know that the company had always been at the forefront of technology and innovation. Many of the features found today on the JobStreet.com online job portal were brainstormed, created, tested and implemented by a team of young innovators who would have made any other technology company proud.

So for Mark Chang to decide on changing the staid cover design to something so starkly different shouldn't have come as a surprise at all to people that know him. The messages he wanted to impart were clear.

First, this could jolly well be the very last time that the present JobStreet.com team will be producing an annual report in its present format. Come next year, if the sale proceeds as planned, JobStreet.com would never quite be the same again. The online job portal will still be there, possibly with the same name, definitely with the same database of job seekers, but there will be a new owner. As for the present public-listed entity, we may eventually see a change in the company's name itself as its business direction moves away from being South-East Asia's leading online job portal.

To get an idea of what's in store for shareholders, let me quote another extract from the annual report; the part where it said:

The Company will continue to be listed and traded immediately after the sale of the online job portal business to SEEK is concluded. After the completion of the transaction, the Company will be classified as an 'affected listed issuer' under Practice Note 17 of the Listing Requirements. We will need to formulate a plan to regularise the Company's financial condition within 12 months. The Board will consider and evaluate suitable opportunities whether by acquisitions or starting new businesses should they arise. Concurrently with that endeavour, the Board will also explore options to maximise returns to shareholders subsequenly to the completion of the sale and this may include a sale of the remaining assets of the Company. The proceeds from such sale may be used to acquire new businesses and/or assets to regularise the Company's financial condition and/or returned to shareholders.

Second, it was a time for reflection on the past and a time for anticipation of the future. The new journey would begin once the job portal business is disposed off. Just like Dr Tenma looking on with pride as Toby was resurrected as a robot and took its place in the imaginary digital world, the people associated with JobStreet.com should look on with pride too as the once fledgling jobs portal business is divested and the company takes on new challenges.

May your wings always be strong and your path always true

May your dreams always be noble and your mission always clear

May your success always be abundant and still you always remain humble

Do Good, Do Well

What's that? A 488-page circular?

Gee, I've just received this package through the Post today. From upstairs, I had heard the postman coming but before I could go out to meet him, he had thrown something over the gate. It landed in the porch with a heavy thud. Letters don't go thud, and neither do fragile items. But this one did. 

And this was what I found after ripping open the plastic bag: a 488-page "circular" from cover-to-cover to shareholders from my old employment, JobStreet.com, calling for an extra-ordinary general meeting to discuss, among other things, the sale of the business in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and some other smaller interests to SEEK International Investments in Australia. 

So finally, this is it: the continuing saga of the disposal of JobStreet.com's main business to their main rival in this region. It needs shareholder ratification on the distribution of the proceeds. I may want to attend this extra-ordinary general meeting but I may not have the time to do so. Not when I shall be travelling back from a trip overseas and I would just want to get home as fast as possible, not break my journey.

Moreover, I do not expect a dissent or the resolutions to be rejected by the shareholders as this can be deemed a done deal already. I'm sure that the majority shareholders have a stranglehold on the en bloc votes even without my participation. So as a very minor minority shareholder, I shall just have to wait and see when the company will pay us shareholders our special dividend. That's all.

(Oh yes, there was sort of a note from the Post Office to tell me that the envelope was torn and had been re-secured by them. Personally signed as well. Nice of the Post Office to tell me that.)

JobStreet: The devil is in the details

Everyone makes mistakes; even news agencies make mistakes - and, unlike certain local newspapers, they admit their mistakes readily for accountability and credibility. (My own mistake here.)

For example, two days ago, it was widely reported by the local and overseas Press that Seek Australia, through their Asian entity known as Seek Asia, had launched a RM1.73 billion takeover bid for the 78 percent shares of JobStreet.com (Bursa Malaysia code: 0058) that they do not already own.

Two days are long enough for the dust to settle and it emerged yesterday that Seek Asia was not buying up the remaining 78 percent of JOBST shares in the Malaysian bourse but rather, they are buying the online recruitment business of JobStreet.com in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam. The JOBST shares will still be available and listed, and that is the most important difference.

The online recruitment business of JobStreet.com in these countries contribute more than 80 percent of the JobStreet Groups profit before tax. Which means to say, once the online recruitment business of JobStreet.com are disposed off, what's left of the company will remain a small fraction of the present business. Interestingly, the operations in India have not been sold off together for whatever reason.

Almost all of the RM1.73 billion payment from Seek Asia, except for RM30 million to meet the administrative costs and corporate fees of this takeover exercise, will then be distributed to all existing shareholders of JOBST (including the 22 percent presently held by Seek Asia, which means Seek Asia is paying themselves back for the 22 percent that they hold of JOBST*) through a special cash dividend.  The news agencies worked it out to a price of RM2.72 per share. I've no idea how they came around to this figure but it must have been based on around 640 million issued JOBST shares.

(* It is a bit more complicated than my description because technically, the pro-rata special cash dividend that Seek Asia will receive will be netted off from the RM1.73 billion which they will pay.)

But in yesterday's filing with Bursa Malaysia, JobStreet.com had also mentioned that post-disposal and post-distribution, the JOBST shares would have increased to 708 million. I wonder whether the extra 68 million shares would be included in the payback to the shareholders. If so, be prepared for the share valuation to be less than the RM2.72 per share. Perhaps only RM2.40 per share.

Also, once the distribution is completed, we have to expect the value of JOBST shares to plunge off a cliff - shaving off perhaps 90 percent of its current value - because the company will no longer be supported by the ongoing online recruitment business. Already, the company is prepared for an eventual reclassification with a PN17 or PN16 status by Bursa Malaysia.
 
Anyhow, there should be an extraordinary meeting called for the shareholders soon in order to approve this disposal and distribution. I've never attended any shareholders meeting before but I think that I should try to make it for this one if my time permits. For old times' sake, I should be there to say a proper goodbye to the one company that was an exemplary success for Malaysia.  

JobStreet, Auld Lang Syne

I have a lot of mixed feelings today. I've just learnt that my old company, JobStreet.com, of which I was a close part for more than eight years of my working life, from 2001 until retirement in 2009, will never be quite the same again.

Oh heck, it may even no longer exist. It was reported by the Wall Street Journal's online edition that Seek Australia intends to buy up the remaining 78 percent of JobStreet.com shares that it does not already own. The same story has since broken out on the local online news websites.

I contacted my sharebroker and he confirmed that there was indeed a request from the company to suspend trading of its shares on Bursa Malaysia with effect from nine o'clock this morning.

I still have friends and ex-colleagues working at JobStreet.com and I am sure that they are all equally as shocked as I am. JobStreet.com has been so much a family to all of us, having gone through both the bad times and the good times together.

But back to this takeover exercise. According to Bursa Malaysia, there are altogether 635,124,860 JOBST shares at the present time. The 78 percent of JOBST shares that Seek Australia is buying is equivalent to 494,098,288 shares out there in the open market. The question is whether the RM1.73 billion that Seek is offering for JOBST shares will include the 22 percent that they already own. If yes, then the offer price should be worth about RM2.70 for each JOBST share. If no, the offer price becomes RM3.50 per share. Right now, trading in JOBST has been suspended at RM2.68. That's interesting....

Note: The Star reports it here and apparently, the RM1.73 billion will include Seek paying themselves back for the 22 percent that they already hold.

I remember way back in the mid-2000s when JobStreet.com was first listed on the Bursa Malaysia, the company's chief executive officer and founder, Mark Chang, used to tell me - and others - that his ultimate dream was to see the shares of the company touch RM5 per share eventually. At that time, the shares were traded at around RM1.20 only but I believed him and kept faith with him.

In 2007, the company announced a two-for-one bonus issue and a consolidation of two shares into one. And then in September last year, the company made a share split which effectively doubled the number of shares and halved the share price. Because of the share split, the target for Chang adjusted to RM2.50 per share instead of RM5. Thus, for the JOBST shares to exceed this target and touch a high of RM2.78 yesterday means that, yes, he did achieve his life-long goal.