SIA at $10...Dream Long Long...

Here's two interesting charts on Singapore Airlines (SIA) that I found doing simple desktop research in late June. It shows the destructive nature of dilution including rights issue and other forms of equity capital raising. These charts illustrate how dilution works negatively for investors and they are great reminders that we have to invest in businesses with strong franchises which require little need for additional capital constantly.

The first chart below is a snapshot from Google showing SIA's share price since 2008 or so. This chart adjusts for the recent rights issue that SIA or SQ (its flight code) did in order to survive. The share count has since more than doubled and as such Google adjusted its share price accordingly. Historical prices now showed that SQ did not trade above $10 for the past 10 years based on the new share count (which is more than doubled before its rights issue).

SQ's price chart from Google

This is the correct representation. Kudos to Google. As old timers in the Singapore stock market would recall, SQ traded above $10 for most of its life as a listed stock. But it will almost never go back there because of the massive dilution/rights issue. 

The new $10 is $5. To reiterate what I wrote previously (in the post "What To Do with SQ's Rights Issue", the range of intrinsic value (IV) for SQ is probably in the vicinity of $3.3 to $5. Simplistically, I did a back of the envelope calculation which put the median of $4.2 as the new IV. As mentioned, if it falls close to $3, then we have a good margin of safety and SQ could be a profitable trade (but hey, we are value investors, not traders right?).

This second chart below shows SQ's share price but it's from Yahoo! Obviously Yahoo's A.I. or whoever is doing the charts hasn't gotten things right. We see SQ's share price showing some old prices, like SQ was trading at $16 in 2010 (which is shown as $8 in the Google price chart above). The Yahoo! price chart goes way back, so we see what the old timers see, SQ trading above $10 for most of its trading history. That's a mirage. A dream long gone. We see how the price then fall off the cliff from $8 to $3.75 today. Which is true, but with the adjustment not factored in, the whole picture doesn't gel.

Maybe that's why Yahoo! is no more and Google rocks!

SQ's wrong price chart from Yahoo!

When a dilution occurs, the share price has to work doubly hard to get back to where it was. Some companies like to do small rights issues in the name of M&A or other capital needs for growth, causing a 20-30% dilution. If we get lucky, or if the company's management is really good, this dilution is justified and the share price can compound growth and generate good returns to come back. 

But more often than not, this doesn't happen and investors get screwed.

In cases of massive dilution such as those we saw this year in Singapore: Singapore Airlines and Sembcorp Marine, investors are forced to cough out a lot more money and those who do not will never see their capital. Well, for those who do cough up, it's still tough. The $3 rights have 75c of profit given that SQ share price is now $3.75, but what about those lots invested previously at $6? It's just throwing money to stay in the game. The verdict is not out. We may see second waves and more rights issues.

So that's just investing. Buyers beware. We have dream long long to see SQ at $10 again. (Translation from Singlish to English: stop dreaming SQ will go back to $10 one day.) 

Caveat Emptor. Happy Independence Day! Huat Ah!