KPF: Who can become a member?

This post is specifically to answer Father Sez. Thank you for visiting my blog and leave comment.

Koperasi Permodalan Felda Membership

From the website, http://www.felda.net.my/kpf/soalanlazim.asp , it is stated that;

1.	Siapakah yang layak menjadi anggota?
		Peneroka-peneroka Felda, isteri dan anak-anak mereka yang warganegara Malaysia dan berusia tidak kurang daripada 18 tahun dan berkelakuan baik
		Koperasi-koperasi peneroka Felda
		Kakitangan-kakitangan Felda yang sedang bertugas dan isteri
		Kakitangan-kakitangan Felda yang sudah bersara yang warganegara Malaysia dan sudah menjadi ahli Koperasi sebelum bersara
		Koperasi-koperasi kakitangan Felda

In general, KPF is open to who are working directly with FELDA. This 'exclusivity' gives lots of advantages to Peneroka and their family. A single solid advice to the children of Peneroka, please put your money in this cooperation and you will not regret. KPF has a strong track record with average dividend between 13% to 14% a year. I cannot guarantee future performance, but oil palm trading is heading a bright prospect.

This may leave you with disappointment, FatherSez. No worry. Everyone has his share of opportunity and you have been doing well so far. I enjoy reading your stories about family, goat farm, and your money management advices.

How to Become Member?

Contact your local Pejabat Felda and ask for membership form. Send the form by yourself or through Pejabat Felda with RM5 membership fee. This may take few months to get approval. Once you have the registration number, you can start to place your investment.

Or go to KPF office;

	Pejabat Koperasi Permodalan Felda (KPF)
	Bangunan Blok J,
	Anjung Felda, Jalan Maktab,
	54000 Kuala Lumpur.

I have been to KPF office last 3 weeks. It was empty except for an officer who will be more than happy to keep him busy with your inquiries. I feel like going to the bank and somebody is waiting to entertain me. No noise, no interruption, just me and him talking about serious business. Haha..

Highest KPF Dividend ever 16.5% for Year 2007

June 27, 2008 22:52 PM
From www.bernama.com

KUALA LUMPUR, June 27 (Bernama) -- Koperasi Permodalan Felda Bhd (KPF) will be paying out dividend of 16.5 percent to its members involving a total payment of RM178.2 million for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2007, a record figure in its history.

For the 2006 financial year, it paid a dividend of 14.5 percent amounting to total payout of RM122.82 million, its chairman Datuk Ahmad Tarmizi Alias said in a press conference after KPF's annual general meeting here Friday.

Ahmad said the increased dividend reflected the good performances of the businesses it had invested in with the higher palm oil price being a major contributor.

KPF's membership rose to 186,268 last year, a 3.55 percent increase from the year before while assets rose by 23.64 percent to RM1.17 billion.

In 2007, KPF reported a revenue of RM253.06 million, an increase by 51.03 percent from RM167.55 million in 2006.

After tax and zakat payment, profit was RM183.31 million compared with RM125.61 million in 2006.

KPF's investment reached RM1.47 billion in 2007 compared with RM1.05 billion the year before with the core of its investments being in equity ownership in 13 Kumpulan Felda companies.

-- BERNAMA

P/s : This is the highest dividend ever paid by KPF to its shareholders. Unfortunately, I only started to invest in KPF early this year. Hopefully, with a strong market for palm oil, KPF will be able to give such a high return for year 2008 and beyond.

A Dollar a Day and You are Millionaire

In many ways, we always think the impossible is really an impossible. Maybe because we focus too much on the final result. But what is more important is the journey. A small act everyday, through persistence routine can yield a magnificent result.

How many of us believe that anyone can be millionaire by putting a dollar aside each day? If this is possible, we surely have many millionaires in this world, rite? The problem is we always look at other people and choose to believe what the majority believe.

A Dollar a Day ..... A Slow Way

One of the greatest human invention in the world of investment and economics is 'interest'. I am talking about good interest here, not the bad one. The interest (or dividend) is simply the return that we get for the investment which is made. Usually in term of percentage and at yearly basis, although not necessarily. However, interest by itself is not really helpful to make us rich. The interest need to be compounded year in and year out. This simply means reinvesting the interest as investment.


"A great physicist, Albert Einstein once referred to compounded interest as the eight wonder of the world"
How A Dollar A Day Can Turn to ONE MILLION at Different Rate in 66 Years

Invest In	Interest		Amount Accumulated
(Hidden in a mattress)	0%		$24,000
(In a savings account)	3%		$77,000
(Certificates of deposit)	5%		$193,000
(Corporate bonds)	8%		$1,000,000
(Growth mutual funds)	10%		$2,700,000
(Aggressive growth mutual funds)	15%		$50,000,000
(Real Estate, businesses)	20%		$1,000,000,000
			(That's One Billion!)

See that!! We can be a millionaire given that you put aside a dollar each day at the right place. We just need to be consistent and live long enough. In country like Malaysia, it is not hard to find place to put in your money. Amanah Saham Bumiputra (ASB) is one of great place to start. The fund consistently yield dividend no less than 7% each year (Dividend + Bonus). Buy..Hey!!! That is a dollar a day, 30 dollars a month. How about putting extra..60 Dollars a month, or 100 Dollars a month. Get it now???

But I am at thirties right now. How I can buy back the 30 years which had passed?

Do not despair. Our first mistake was : not to initiate the investment a long time ago. But the biggest mistake is not to start it now. Remember, the journey is more important than the destination.

New great financial website

I found this great Malaysian website. And suddenly drawn to one of the post. The author wrote:

The five mistakes we have talked about so far are:-
- Not paying myself first
- Not forming or joining a correct peer group
- Not having a written budget
- Not managing my career properly and
- Not getting the best deals on my mortgages
There is more.
The next one is “foolishly selling my long term investments without proper evaluation and soul searching”.

Thank you for sharing the list. Mistake can be the greatest teacher in life.

Back at base, Mountain of Oil, Turkmenistan

Yeahh...I am at the base now after 2 weeks of night shift at Burren's rig. I was rigging down yesterday whe I just finished my night shift. Which means I havent sleep for 24 hours. hehe...

I just want to have an easy day today and feel like blogging again. I realised that the economy is not so good at the moment. The SLB share dropped from almost USD100 at th end of 2007, to USD74.86 today. maybe this s a good time to buy more stocks for those who has spare cash. The SLB stock price, I believe will get better soon.

The same story goes to US Dollar. Dollar gets weaker day after day. Today, the exchange rate (from xe.com) is USD1 = RM3.23. Since my salary is in USD, I think it is not a good time to transfer my money to my Maybank account in Malaysia. I can easily lose money as the USD gets weaker. This effect will be of great significant when I transfer a large sum of money. So I will wait for USD to get stronger, but I do not know when. Well, after back of envelope calculation, I think it is not worthy to transfer the money now, and lose few hundred Ringgit, eventhough it is good if I can dump my money in unit trust at the earliest opportunity that I have. I think I will transfer the money when USD1 is equaivalent to RM 3.30 or more. we will see later.

Profit from Unit Trust

Basically, the unit holder can gain profit from unit trust investment in 2 ways:

First : Capital Gain - This relates to the appreciation of value (when NAV value increase over time)

Second : Distribution - The manager will announce the distribution for each unit in term of cents or percentage.

Introduction to Unit Trust

Unit trust is another investment vehicle which I can categorized as moderate risk. However, each fund has it own risk rating and should be accessed individually.

What is Unit Trust?
A investment scheme which allow me to pool my money with other investors (thousands of them) and professionally managed. Investment manager will invest the money on my behalf and distribute the profit/loss back to the unit holder.

Why do I Need Unit Trust? Can I Just Invest by Myself?
I need to understand the benefits of unit trust in order to answer the questions.

The Benefits of Unit Trust

Professional Fund Management: For a small fee, professional fund managers will decide how to invest my money using their expertise and resources. This is what I am lacking. So it is a good idea to hire them.

Diversification: My money will be invested over a broad portfolio of stocks in different companies, sectors, countries or regions. This will reduce the risk involved.

Simple, Save Time and Liquidity: It is easy to purchase unit trust compared to buy stock directly in stock market. It saves me time to study and predict future market in order to make decision. I can redeem my investment and receive cash within two weeks.

ASB Divedend 1990-2007

KPF Dividend 1992-2006

I just being informed that the dividend for year 2005 was 14%. The KPF website announces 10% dividend and 4.5% bonus for year 2006.

Koperasi Permodalan Felda (KPF)

Koperasi Permodalan Felda (KPF) was founded in 1980 to provide saving and investment opportunity to settlers (peneroka) and staff of FELDA. This initiative provides chances for members to have equity in subsidiary companies under FELDA. KPF is open to settlers (peneroka and penerokawati), their spouses and children. As my father is a settler since 1979, I took this opportunity to register with KPF about a month ago with RM5 fee. I am looking forward to obtain my registration number which means i can start my investment.

Click here to look at KPF website.

But what so special about this KPF? Since 1992 to 2004, KPF yielded an average of 13.27% of dividend every year. This is much higher than conventional ASB investment.

So if you are sons or daughters of a settler, take this opportunity and build your wealth faster (unless you have more lucrative investment vehicle). I know there are similar kind of investment like KPF which are specifically design to cater a member of an organization. For example, ATM (Angkatan Tentera Malaysia) also has its own cooperation. Ask your father or mother if they are member of such organization. Then find out the advantages of being a member and your eligibility.

ASB Performance

The graph below shows ASB performance (dividend plus bonus) from 1990 to 2007.

The highest return (dividend plus bonus) : 14% in 1990 and 1994
The lowest return : 8.55% in 2007
Average return : 11.15%

* I do not guarantee the accuracy of any figure in this blog. I have tried my best to find the most reliable source for the data.

Where to Save and Invest?

Most people know where to save their money. In Malaysia alone, we have more than a dozen of banks which can be used. Setting up a saving account is not much a hassle anyway. However, do I know where to invest?

Investment Vehicles

In my opinion, there are few investment vehicles which are readily accessible in Malaysia.

ASN, ASB, ASW etc : Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) is part of government effort to instill a saving habit among Malaysians. PNB has issued various unit trust schemes such ASB, ASN, ASW 2020, ASD, ASG. PNB was founded in 1979 and became the largest fund management company in Malaysia. These unit trust scheme usually yield between 7-10% dividend each year.

Click here for PNB master prospectus.

Other Unit Trusts: Unit trust has a long history since 1959 in Malaysia. Nowadays, there are at least 20 companies offering unit trust products. The unit trust can give up to 40% return in a year (not all, only few with exceptional performance). However, the average return is between 10-20%. It is advisable to leave my money for at least moderate term (3 years) in order to get a fair return.

Property: Property is almost sure to appreciate in value. With development around Malaysia (such as Wilayah Pembangunan Iskandar WPI), some regions will experience property booming soon.

These are 3 investment vehicles which i think readily accessible in the market. The other vehicles are complex, consume time and need big capital. Thus, as an average person I will concentrate on these 3 investment vehicles. These investments are simple and easily understandable with manageable amount of risk.

Saving vs Investing

Actually there are major differences between saving and investing. In previous post, I have combined saving and investing together. At times, the word 'saving' that I used, can be translated directly as 'investing'.

The Definitions:

This is my personal definitions of saving and investing. Saving is putting aside my money in some place in which I will be able to get it anytime I want without any delay. Saving is intended to smoothen my cash flow without any intention of getting any return from the activity.

However, investing means allocating some portion of my money in places where it can grow and yield return in medium or long term. To stay solvent in this modern world, it is important to have both elements in our financial plan.

How They Differ

Goals: Saving is for short term goal and to ease daily business transaction or in emergency. Investing is mainly moderate (3 years) to long term commitment. The money is less liquid in investing compared to saving. For example, saving maybe used to purchase new sofa set while investing is for children's education.

Vehicles: Saving and Investing vehicles are not the same. The most common form of saving is bank account (saving and current accounts). Meanwhile, investment can be made in the form of bonds, mutual funds and property.

Return and Risk: Most likely the return of investment is much higher than saving. The same apply to the risk associated with both methods.

Liquidity: It is easier to get my saving money at any time I want. By using ATM card and Internet banking, any transaction can be made by just touching few buttons. Meanwhile, money which is invested takes time to be converted into cash. This may take several days.