A tale of shares in 2 listed companies

A retired friend used to apply for IPOs and when he stopped applying, he was left with only two companies' shares which he had successfully applied for: 1,000 shares at Rm2.20 in Ingress Bhd and 1000 shares at Rm2.50 in QL Resources Bhd. But in terms of investment, they could not have been more contrasting!

At the time when I used to have breakfast with him and other retirees, the price of Ingress dropped to 20 sen! When I met him briefly a few months ago, he said he should have listened to me because Ingress's price has gone up past 70 sen, but admitted that he would have sold them at 40 sen when he would have recovered his book loss had he bought 10,000 shares at 20 sen. I can still remember telling him that if he were risk averse, even 1000 shares at 20 sen would have averaged down his investment to 1.20 per share. The NTA was above Rm2.00 per share.

In the case of QL, at the time of discussion, it was before the shares were split into two, and the price was more than Rm5.50 and his original shareholding has increased, with bonus issues, to 9,000 shares! I take my hat off to him for being able to resist selling them till today. Most people would have taken profit after say, 50% gain, if not, 200%; but his gain was almost 2000%!

I can still remember tales of those who bought and hold on to shares in Genting, Public Bank and Magnum. If not mistaken, an original 1,000 shares in Genting would be worth over Rm1 million, and I can still remember at the time Magnum was being similarly calculated, they were worth over Rm200,000! A friend in our old neighbourhood in KL used to buy IPOs and keep. Both husband and wife used to take the bus to town and both had experienced falling off them. Yet when he died, he left behind shares which he bought since he started applying for IPOs, in 1970!

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