8I Holdings Limited (ASX:8IH)

[jaco]

Why the concern over where he goes?

I think the gist of this discussion is that Koon Boon Kee left the fund and not so much about his next position. Indeed, there are no reasons to be overly impressed by Kee's performance. But at least he has the professional qualifications and experience to manage the fund. The investment ideas coming out of 8I before Kee's arrival were mostly local ideas (Vicom, Breadtalk, Boustead) with no extensive reasoning behind them. Koon Boon seemed to have a large set of candidate stocks (from Japan, Korea, Australia, China/Taiwan) on his radar. From his comprehensive presentations it was always clear on what merits he made his picks.

Clive Tan has a background in education and must be quite busy already as the managing director of the 8i Holdings group. Yesterday, he sent an update describing the new "multi-counsellor" system for managing the fund, but the text was too brief to instill much confidence; he referred his readers to a book called Capital: The Story of Long-Term Investment Excellence by Charles D. Ellis.