Not much to report this week except for these two reports on Public Bank and Litrak which offer pretty succinct reasons for why these are considered good, safe ones to have in your portfolio.
More on Litrak (updated on 03-12-06)
I would just like to add a few words about this counter. Normally I would not consider investing in something like this because inherently it is not a well-managed company. If you look at its turnover you will see that in the last five years it has increased from 155 million to 242 million whilst its net profits have actually fallen from 101 million to 79 million. However it is considered a good company because of its low gearing, strong balance sheet, fairly predictable earnings and low capex. Due to the upcoming toll hikes, analysts predict that turnover will also increase and have revalued the stock to between 3.75 to 4.20. However given that the company has not managed to demonstrate its ability to translate increased earnings into net profits, I believe that the market may discount this. Still, at three dollars I believe it has some way to run.
