Courage Marine: Steady as she goes.

On 30 Sep, I said "A friend asked me what I think of Courage Marine and I told him I like its numbers and I like how the BDI seems to have stabilised at $2,500 thereabouts.  I feel that Courage Marine shouldn't have bad news with regards to earnings. The main reason why I have not really talked about Courage Marine very much recently is the lack of anything newsworthy." Things have hardly changed since.

The BDI is currently at US$2,696 which is quite comfortable and at an investor meeting on Thursday, Chairman Hsu Chih-Chien said he was very bullish on the ability of China in particular to continue driving the market for bulk cargo going forward.

“Our Capesize vessel mainly transports coal, bauxite and iron ore while our four Panamax ships focus on thermal coal mainly for the energy needs of China. We feel there is huge potential for growth in the Chinese coal market,” he added.

“This country still relies on coal for the vast bulk of its energy needs. So if you want to know if I expect any slowdown in China’s coal demand, I would say – Not in my lifetime,” Mr. Hsu said.

My opinion that Courage Marine is a good investment at current prices has not changed and from what was revealed on Thursday, it seems that Courage Marine could continue to deliver a good set of numbers in time.  I remain vested.

Read complete article in Next Insight here.

Related post:
Courage Marine: Lengthy consolidation.

CitySpring Infrastructure Trust: Thoughts on divestment.

On 5 Oct, OCBC reported that they were suspending coverage on CitySpring Infrastructure Trust as they see limited positive price catalysts in the near term. Furthermore, Hydro Tasmania which is owned by the Australian government is proceeding with dispute resolution and is demanding for A$6.9m in commercial risk sharing mechanism (CRSM).

For a long time now, I have regarded my investment in CitySpring Infrastructure Trust as a mistake. I blogged about it in "High Yields: Successes, failures and the in betweens."

With a quarterly DPU of 1.05c, the yield is 6.94% at the current unit price of 60.5c.  As of 30 June 2010, it had S$1,450,941,000 in borrowings against S$2,014,838,000 of total assets. This gives a gearing level of 72%. This is being optimistic as intangibles account for S$432,026,000 of total assets. Yield is not fantastic and gearing level is extremely high.

Comparing CitySpring Infrastructure Trust with K-Green Trust, we see that the latter has a similar yield but with zero gearing, it is almost immediately apparent that K-Green Trust presents a more compelling proposition.

At CitySpring Infrastructure Trust's current unit price, removing it from my frozen portfolio would result in a small loss but with the many quarters of income distribution collected, I would probably end up with a small gain.  Time to close a chapter, I think.

View slides here.

Related post:
K-Green Trust: Possibly stabilised.