The following is a guest post by Tan Si-Rong. Si-Rong is a retail investor with close to 10 years of experience trading in Singapore equities. He has worked in UOB-Kay Hian as an Equity Sales Dealer and at Singapore Tourism Board as an Assistant Manager, specializing in the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) sector.
History
Founded in 1976, Kingsmen is a communication design and production company that specializes in the following business segments; Research & Design, Retail & Corporate Interior, Exhibitions & Events, Thematic & Museums, and Alternative Marketing.
Growth since IPO
Since Kingsmen’s successful public listing in 2003, its stock price has risen to four times the IPO price of SGD0.195. The same can be said for its revenue; from a mere SGD60 million back in 2002, it has increased steadily to SGD260 million in 2011 due to strong demand for Kingsmen’s services in growth markets such as Greater China, India, Middle East etc. Till date, Kingsmen has handled many large-scale projects such as Universal Studios Singapore (USS), World Expo Shanghai, LVMH boutique stores etc; all adding credentials to Kingsmen’s ability to provide quality services to clients.
Founders and Philosophy
The success story for Kingsmen thus far can be largely due to the two founders of the company, Executive Chairman Benedict Soh and Group Managing Director Simon Ong. Both of them feel strongly in the need to constantly engage clients with total experiential solutions, and delivering excellence in all things that Kingsmen undertakes. The company’s name is also derived from this ideology, in view that the staffs are the “men” who serve the customers, who are regarded as “kings”.
Both founders of Kingsmen are true believers in the power of synergies. While Benedict, who was recently awarded the Lifetime Achievement for Outstanding Contribution to Tourism award by the Singapore Tourism Board, is the one who possesses business acumen. Simon, on the other hand, is the one with both the designing brain and creative juices in him. Together, they see the need to constantly broaden earnings base, enhance capabilities and expand key accounts and client to ride on the growth opportunities presented to the company. Together, they teamed up to shape what Kingsmen is today.
Outlook
Despite the challenging global economic situation ahead, Kingsmen should be able to continue doing what it does best; and that is to provide value-added services, and enhance the experience of all clients, without affecting bottom-line. The air of optimism can be attributed to the strong pipeline of projects, such as Hong Kong Disneyland extension, Sotheby’s Visitors Centre and Offices, Marina Bay Sands (MBS) and USS extensions etc, which will keep Kingsmen busy for now. Kingsmen may also be tendering for thematic projects like Shanghai Disney, and there is high chance that it will be offered the tender, after its successful execution of the Hong Kong Disneyland project earlier on.
With Singapore maintaining its position as the Top International Meeting City for 5th consecutive year by the Union of International Associations 2011 and Asia’s Top Convention City for the 10th consecutive year by ICCA Global Rankings 2011, it will bode well for Kingsmen’s Exhibition and Museums segment, which is also the key growth driver of sales and earnings for Kingsmen.
Fast Forward
My parting words for you? With attractive dividend yield of more than 5%, rising consumerism and booming MICE sector, all things seem to be moving in the right direction for Kingsmen. It remains to be seen if there is any further upside for the stock price of Kingsmen in future.
SudhanP.com 
This sounds more like a sales pitch than investment insight.
Hi William Showalter,
Thanks for visiting my blog and for your comments!
The writer is independent of the company. He does not own shares in Kingsmen nor is he related to the management or the board of directors of Kingsmen. He has tried his best to appear objective for the benefit of the readers. He wrote the article in his personal capacity. Hope this helps. Cheers!
Beware of any juicy investment story of low liquidity stocks!
Hi Createwealth8888,
I know where you are coming from. You have vast experience in the stock market. Individuals can hype up stocks with low liquidity so that they themselves can benefit when other investors start rushing into them.
I would like to reiterate that this article was written by my friend, Si-Rong, without any hidden motives whatsoever. In fact, I was the one who invited him to write a post on Kingsmen. The last few sentences of the article might have made it sound like a sales pitch but it was not intended as such. I strive only to have quality posts in my blog and I believe this is one of the many quality posts in my blog.
Thank you for visiting my blog and I really appreciate your kind advice! Cheers!
I guess the writer is not advocating a buy or sell call but rather giving a commentary of the current situation just like any research analyst, but on his on own personal basis? No right or wrong man.
Hi Barnabas,
Thanks for visiting my blog and for your reply!
I think you are right. The writer didn’t give any target price unlike what a stock analyst would do. Anyway, if there was a buy/sell call or target price, I would have not published it as I don’t like giving recommendations myself.
For those interested, research reports can be obtained free of charge from http://remisiers.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=6&Itemid=16. It is updated daily with filings from various brokerage houses. For Kingsmen’s reports, one can visit http://kingsmen.listedcompany.com/research_reports.html.
I have Kinsgmen shares. From my biased opinion, they are reasonable to have as part of a portfolio when bought at a price that gives reasonable margin of safety (I bought mine when the prices were still low) and you put in stop losses (I use Saxo and Citi both which can put in auto stop losses). I have seen them work on a project for my ex-company and what I hear from colleagues is good opinion of them for other projects. The author probably has similar experience and hence the tone of his article. If you can monitor the industry and know when to get out if necessary, it’s a good buy.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for visiting my blog and for your sharing! I learnt something new from your post. That by using Saxo or Citi, I can put stop loss for local shares. I thought one could never do it in local brokerages unless one is a premium investor. Thanks for the tip!