Opportunity Fund

To make explosive wealth, one must have opportunity fund to invest during times of crisis. In September 2008, the collapse of Lehman Brothers (an investment firm in the United States.) ignited the world financial crisis. Before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, fear of a “big bang” recession had been lingering around for months due to the festering subprime mortgages mess in United States.

But no one would have predicted the magnitude of the economic crisis. Back then, the President of the United States announcing no bail-out for Lehman Brothers as it was considered not “too big to fail” (unlike other mega banks like Citibank, Bank of America, etc).

Opportunity fund

The next day, there were blood-letting carnage in stock markets throughout the world. Dow Jones witnessed a jaw-dropping decline of more than 770 points overnight. Singapore’s stock exchange (SGX) was not spared either. In the six months following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, from September 2008 to March 2009, stock markets worldwide fell by almost 40%, wiping off about USD16 trillion in capitalization. Singapore’s stock exchange also fell by close to 35%.

On looking back, the 2007-2009 financial crisis was indeed a “once in a generation” defining event in the financial sector. Personally for me, it had been both an eye opener and rewarding experience for me.

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Three ways to become rich in Singapore Part II

In my previous post “Three ways to become rich in Singapore”, I have some readers providing feedback and comments. I appreciate readers for taking precious time to read my blog postings and provide their valuable comments.

One of my readers commented that “dividend investing” can also make you rich. Whilst I agree that investing in fixed income, be it stocks or unit trusts, is considered a source of side income, it does not really make you “rich”.

In my personal context, being rich means to enhance one’s wealth substantially. Dividend investing may provide additional fixed income but it also have its risk – decreasing stock prices and liquidity problem.

I still believe that the best three ways to become rich in Singapore is to invest in property, do business and work in the sales line.

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Three ways to become rich in Singapore

What are the three ways to become rich in Singapore?

Many of us will agree that the cost of living is very high in Singapore. This is especially so during the last few years when the rate of inflation increased rapidly. In spite of the global economic downturn, unemployment rate remains low in Singapore.

But most Singaporeans struggle with the rising costs, as their salaries remain stagnant. Henceforth, most of us are concerned whether we would make enough money to retire comfortably in our twilight years.

Stock Market
SG Wealth Builder

Recently, me and my good friend were lamenting the rising cost of living in Singapore and pointed out that the same bowl of $2.00 noodle sold in the hawker stall now costs $2.50 or more. That would represent a 20% increase in prices and we were left wondering how an average salaried Singaporean can cope with this sort of inflation.

We came to the conclusion that to beat the inflation and get out of the rat race, we need to be rich. And there are mainly three ways to get rich [This is a premium article. The rest of the content is blocked and can be accessible by SG Wealth Builder Members only.

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Investment Principles

For the past few days I have been doing spring cleaning and happened to flip through my investment notebook. I went through some of the interesting lessons learnt during the period 2007-2009.

The collapse of the Lehman Brothers really change the investment world forever and the old strategy of holding stocks for the long-term for capital appreciation may no longer works.

In view of this, we need to equip ourselves with well-planned strategies to protect and grow our wealth. In 2009, I had made three guiding principles for investment.

Invest in myself
Many people, myself included, tends to chase the money and invest in everything under sun (stocks, ETF, property,gold, unit trust, etc). Everything, except themselves. We may not realize that our knowledge, ability and skills are the most precious assets that enable us to make critical judgement calls to generate income through jobs, sales, investment and business activities.

Henceforth, most of us tend to neglect investments on acquiring new knowledge or skills. I had told myself that I must acquire or gain new mastery of knowledge in niche areas like precious metals and real estate investment trusts.

Gold and Silver Bullion

Invest in health
As cliche as it might sound, health is really wealth, this is especially so in an expensive society like Singapore.

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ACE Startups

For startups, resources is important. To this end, the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) announced on 19 Jan 2012 it will be providing funding, networks and mentorship to 500 startups in an effort to promote entrepreneurship in Singapore.

Under this new programme called Ace Startups, Singaporeans and permanent residents who are first time entrepreneurs can receive up to $50,000 in a one-off grant for their startups. One interesting aspect of Ace Startups is that applicants older than 26 years old are eligible for this funding.

The grant will be disbursed in a co-matching basis – 70% provided by ACE Startups and the remaining to be committed by the applicants. Approval process takes about 6 weeks and applications will be evaluated by a panel team of venture capitalists, angel investors and entrepreneurs.

The aim of this fund, estimated to be $25 million, is expected to help startups become sustainable businesses. While this support for startups is heartening, it is far more important to have a feasible business plan and workable idea. After all, the funding will not be sustainable if the startups consistently burn cash and have insufficient income.

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My Investment Notebook

I started my investment journey more than 10 years ago when I was serving my National Service. Back then, I had bought 2 lots of Unisteel using my brother’s account and I remember I had invested about SGD2000. It was a small amount of money by any measure but I found it memorable because this investment kick-started my wealth building journey and led me to create my first investment notebook.

Unisteel was a listed company that specialized in producing fasteners and screws for computer hard-disk drives. By and large, it was a successful investment as the stock price increased consistently throughout the years. I sold my shares in Unisteel before it was de-listed and had went on to invest several other shares in the SGX.

investment

Although my experiences with Unisteel was a positive one, I had my ups and downs with other stocks. Nonetheless, these battles had provided me valuable investment experiences.

Throughout the years, I had kept a little blue notebook to capture down my various “victories” and “defeats”. To me, investing in stock is like being engaged in a war. You have to prepare and research well; devise strategies and tactics to win the battle. Of course, choosing the right generals (stocks) is crucial as well.

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Funding options

I was doing some research on funding options for entrepreneurs in Singapore and decided to blog down some of my newly-acquired knowledge. We have often heard about angel investors, venture capitalists, seed funding and incubators. Many question and wonder the roles, involvement and motives of these various categories of investors with regards to the development of enterprises. Hope this article can bring some form of clarity.

Basically there are two ways an entrepreneur can obtain funding: either through debt financing or equity financing. Debt financing is usually secured against certain assets and the creditor has the power or rights to demand repayment of any money owed, should the company be forced to close down. On the other hand, an equity capital involves the exchange of shares in the company for funds. The equity investors bear the risk of losing their investment should the company failed or benefit through participation in profits. Below are some common form of equity financing:

Angel investors
Angel investors are private investors who are wealthy individuals looking to park their excess wealth into new ventures. They usually provide capital for commercial start-ups, in exchange for equity or convertible debt and they typically invest between $25,000 to $500,000.

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Wrap fee for CPF Investment Scheme

From 1st July 2012, the CPF Board will subject wrap fee charged for CPF Investment Scheme to a maximum of 1% per annum.

A wrap fee is an ongoing fee charged by financial advisors for providing bundled services such as advisory, brokerage and administrative fees. It is typically levied monthly or quarterly by liquidating a small portion of the investment. Currently, CPF members who maintain wrap accounts for their CPF Investment accounts are charged up to 1.5% annually by their advisors.

BullionStar

Since 2006, CPF board has been progressively implementing new measures to lower the cost of investment and enhance the quality of funds under CPF Investment Scheme. This new measure should bring cheers to retail investors as high costs may potentially erode investment returns over the long term.

Such development is in the right direction and will go a long way to encourage more Singaporean to invest responsibly using their CPF funds.

Under the CPF Investment Scheme, you may invest in CPF-approved unit trusts, bonds, endowment policies and gold products, after setting aside $20,000 in your Ordinary Account. If you wished to invest using your CPF Special Account, you need to set aside $40,000.

But before you start to invest your CPF monies, it is important to examine your risk tolerance and your financial situation.

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Guidelines for Writing a Business Plan

Before you take the leap into the path of entrepreneurship, it is essential that you done the homework and write a business plan. As cliché as it might sound, if you fail to plan, plan to fail.

Having a good business plan will provide you a clear business objective and an organized way of looking at all the important aspects of your business. Most importantly, it will provide you a crystallized view on whether your business idea can be successfully implemented.

Business plan

A well written business plan will also come in handy, when you are looking for funding from potential investors (venture capitalists or angel investors). Key elements of it should focus on:

Stating/defining the problem
Your plan must define the problem which your business is addressing and not just stating your business idea. Nobody will be interested in a business idea if it is not solving a problem and is impractical. The plan has to be precise and easy to understand for layman (nobody likes to read a long-winded business plan filled with technical jargon, especially bankers and venture capitalists). Focus on how and why your business can deliver and solve the problem.

Market size and industry trend
Define the estimated market size and industry trends, dynamics and customer landscape.

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