Samsung Electronics to talk strategy with investors, sceptics

September 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Updated: Wednesday September 4, 2013 MYT 4:46:29 PM

Samsung Electronics to talk strategy with investors, sceptics

SEOUL: South Korean consumer electronics titan Samsung is planning a strategic conference with investors of a scale not seen since eight years ago to fight a gnawing suspicion that its heyday may have come and gone. Samsung Electronics, which undershot analysts’ earnings estimates in April-to-June in a rare miss, said on Wednesday that it would meet with 400 investors and analysts in Seoul on Nov. 6 to talk about its longer-term growth strategy.Samsung’s dominance in the high-end smartphone segment has driven a series of record profits in recent years and helped it trump arch rival Apple Inc. But analysts say the segment may have passed its peak this year as the market saturates and competition from cheaper phones intensifies.

Shares in Asia’s most valuable technology firm, which depends on mobile devices for two-thirds of its profit, have fallen 13 percent over the past three months. That compares with a 3 percent drop in the domestic stock market.

Samsung’s stock has been hit by weaker-than-expected sales of the Galaxy S4smartphone, analyst downgrades, and investor concerns that its battle to maintain its supremacy in the high-end mobile segment may further squeeze margins.

“It’s been a while since we last communicated our longer-term business plan, and this year’s event is largely aimed at discussing our latest strategy and vision for 2020,” a Samsung executive said, declining to be identified as details of the plan have yet to be made public.

In 2009, Samsung said it would target revenue of $400 billion by 2020 and become one of the world’s top 10 brands by then. The firm, which also makes computer memory chips, flat screens, televisions and home appliances, earned 201 trillion won ($183.1 billion) in 2012.

The November event, the first of its kind under new Chief Financial Officer Lee Sang-hoon, also comes as Samsung Group seeks new vistas of revenue.

Some new businesses, including a unit that makes solar cells and another that produces medical equipment, have yet to yield any tangible results since they were unveiled in 2010. – Reuters

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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