Fraser & Neave (F & N)

Hi Weijian,

Thanks for a bit of history. 30% of the rent sounds more reasonable than 30% of the whole farm operation. The royal connection will be useful as no government official wants to be perceived as working against the Raja's interests.

For completeness, let me mention the F&N Berhad AGM materials which were just published online: https://www.fn.com.my/investors/#corporate-governance (click Annual General Meeting tab)

All together, it's a pack of information related to the new dairy farm and other operations.

An update on the progress of the AgriValley project. The cows will be imported from Chile now...

https://www.thestar.com.my/business/busi...hub-vision

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/FY2025%20...eID=866685

Malaysia Agri valley has started, and F&N has begun moving up the value chain.

However, full year results are flat mainly due to the worsening performance of the school textbook and assessment book. In my view, it might be time for F&N to either up the cost of textbooks for school, or otherwise close it down The marshall cavendish textbooks segment has been making losses for years, the better solution will be for the Singapore consumers （its largest textbook market） to take a 5% increase in textbook prices, otherwise if F&N closes its textbook segment, EPS will improve

Overall flat earnings and flat dividend. Diaries and beverage are doing well but the publishing segment is doing poorly

(Yesterday, 12:38 PM)CY09 Wrote: https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/FY2025%20...eID=866685
the better solution will be for the Singapore consumers （its largest textbook market） to take a 5% increase in textbook prices, otherwise if F&N closes its textbook segment, EPS will improve

While I agree on your observations, closing down the textbook business seems a bit harsh. There are employees depending on it for their livelihoods. I prefer management  would sell the print & publishing business wholly or partly to a competitor who could benefit from the larger scale efficiencies and keep the business going.

BTW, at almost every AGM there is a shareholder who suggests or hints at such a plan. However, F&N is ultimately controlled by the Thai business tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi who seems uninterested in this idea. His children seem a bit more oriented towards modern business ideas and perhaps they will separate the distinct businesses at some point.

BTW 2, as you can see in the Segment results, Printing & Publishing had an Attributable loss before fair value adjustment and exceptional items of 5.7 Million SGD. The same line item for the conglomerate as a whole was a profit of more than 150 Million SGD. The pressure of the P&P losses on the total group results is a few percent. Personally, I don't mind management continuing the P&P division as long as losses are kept in check. The impact on the overall group is too small to worry about as a shareholder.