Swiber and Boustead - News Snippets

Just some short news snippets (my recent posts have been rather lengthy and will probably make readers fall asleep, so it's good to have short snippets now and then).

Swiber initiated its share buy-back programme last Friday and bought back 200,000 shares at an average price of S$1.3151, which will cost the company S$263,020 (excluding brokerage). Today, the company announced that it bought back another 186,000 shares at an average price of S$1.3662, incurring a total of S$254,113.20. The total shares bought back so far amount to 386,000 costing the company a total of S$517,133.20. Readers may recall that as recently as June 26, 2007, the company had raised S$120.4 million for business expansion through a placement of 55,350,000 new shares at S$2.1748. So I guess you can say that the company is buying back at a "discount" of nearly 38.3% (using an average re-purchase price of S$1.34 per share over 2 trading days). If we consider that the total amount they are allowed to re-purchase is only 42,435,000, I guess it's a pity that they cannot "re-purchase" all their share placement shares at $1.30+ and then hopefully re-issue new shares in future at a higher price ! Haha, just kidding but it's a sneaky thought.....

Boustead also announced today that Mr. FF Wong, CEO, had purchased an additional 142,000 shares of Boustead at a price of S$1.00 per share. This has effectively increased his already large stake of 31.7% to 31.73%. Perhaps the CEO is trying to signal something by purchasing shares in his own company, as he is acutely aware of the value of the business and the latent potential for future growth, but readers are free to conclude on their own if this means anything. Whatever the case, it is always more important to analyze the business first, before looking for any insider purchases.