UNI-ASIA: Maintains FY2014 dividend at 0.625 cent (4.43% yield)

Some other takeaways from the briefing:

CFO Lim Kai Ching.» Hotel management: This business had a small profit of US$68,000 last year. The nine hotels under the Vista brand that it manages achieved an occupancy rate of 83.4%, up from 81.7% aided by a weakened yen and a rise in tourists.

Economies of scale are needed to ramp up the profitability, in pursuit of which Uni-Asia is set to manage a new hotel in 2016 and another one in 2017.

That would up the number of rooms under management from the current 1,600 to about 2,100. 

Uni-Asia's target is about 3,000 rooms.

» Final dividend: Asked for the rationale of maintaining the dividend at 0.625-cent when the group's profit had fallen, CFO Lim Kai Ching said that the drop in profit arose in part from non-cash fair value losses in the shipping segment.

In addition, the group had an operating cashflow of US$4.8 million, which is sufficient to fund the dividend of SGD2.9 million.

The USD had strengthened vis-a-vis the SGD, resulting in a relatively lower USD amount to be paid for the dividends compared to FY2013.

At SGD1.36/USD, this will be around USD2.1m, compared to around USD2.3m a year ago.

» Share consolidation: Uni-Asia has proposed to consolidate 10 shares into one. This is subject to shareholders' approval at an EGM to be held on the same day as the upcoming AGM.

Asked if the share consolidation would make the share price vulnerable to a sell-down, Uni-Asia Chairman Michio Tanamoto pointed out that the stock is now at a sharp discount to the net asset value of 39 SGD cents.

A sell-down would just make the price-book ratio even more attractive to investors, he said.