The Miele Guide, Asia's Best Restaurants

Following is a list of Asia's top 10 restaurants, according to The Miele Guide:

1. Iggy's, Singapore

2. L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Hong Kong, China

3. Robuchon a Galera, Macau, China

4. Jaan, Singapore

5. Antonio's, Cavite, Philippines

6. Mozaic, Bali, Indonesia

7. Zuma, Hong Kong, China

8. Cilantro Restaurant & Wine bar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

9. L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Tokyo, Japan

10. Caprice, Hong Kong, China

Singapore restaurant Iggy's reclaimed its crown as the top dining spot in Asia in the third annual edition of a regional dining guide which saw a Malaysian restaurant make the top 10 for the first time.

Iggy's run by restaurateur Ignatius Chan topped the list of Asia's 20 best restaurants in the 2010/2011 Miele Guide, knocking last year's top choice, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Hong Kong, into second place. Iggy's topped the inaugural list in 2008/2009.

Celebrity chef Robuchon saw his three Michelin-starred Robuchon a Galera in Macau retain its third-place listing in the guide, which covers 450 restaurants in 17 countries. The Parisian chef's Tokyo venue shot up to number 9 from 20 last year. China had the most restaurants in the top 20 with eight -- six of them in Hong Kong -- followed by Singapore, with five, reflecting which parts of the region are recovering fastest from the recent economic crunch.

"I think restaurants had a hard time last year. I'd go into some places and see only corporate customers," said Aun Koh, director of Ate Media, the Singapore-based company that publishes The Miele Guide.

"But they're coming back now. I think Singapore and Hong Kong have bounced back really well, but I still worry about Japan."

Cilantro Restaurant & Wine Bar in Kuala Lumpur became the first Malaysian restaurant to make the top 10.

A rise in restaurants opened by big-name foreign chefs across the region, especially in Singapore, has helped spur local chefs on to new efforts, Koh said.

"There's been a lot of pressure on chefs and restaurants to keep standards high consistently. They think, 'I'm going to compete with these guys now,' it's pushing them to get better."

The Miele Guide was created in 2008 to better recognize Asia's best chefs and restaurants, and is selected after several rounds of public voting and judging by experts.

Like last year, Robuchon's Tokyo restaurant was the only Japanese entry in the top 20 even though Japan as a whole had the greatest number of restaurants in the guide, with 56.

Koh attributed this to an overabundance of success that meant votes were split. In addition, many of Japan's better restaurants have nearly "cult" status and might not be as well known to casual visitors, especially from other countries.

Overall, he said, the guide tended to show that Asians place a high value on physical comfort when eating good food -- not surprising given the climate in much of the region.

"You can go to a lot of these restaurants in jeans and a nice shirt, but you don't have a snooty waiter looking down at you," he said.

The 17 countries in the guide are Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Wonderings

How do you view this? Goldman Sachs International now has a 11.5% stake in Berjaya Corp. No matter what your views are of Vincent Tan or his Berjaya group of companies, you have to salute him in getting GSI onboard. If you ask all the analysts covering Malaysian stocks to recommend 3 counters for GSI to take up substantial stakes in, I can safely say that Berjaya Corp would probably not make the list at all. Its a wonderment, its probably the only time you can shake your head in disbelief but had to clap at the same time.



Goldman Sachs International ("GSI")
Peterborough Court, 133 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2BB, United Kingdom

Indirect/deemed interest (%)	:	11.5
Total no of securities after change	:	464,685,800
Date of notice	:	28/05/2010

GSI is a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs Holdings (U.K.), which is a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs Group Holdings (U.K.), which is in turn a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs (UK) L.L.C. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is the direct holding company of Goldman Sachs (UK) L.L.C. and the ultimate holding company of the other aforementioned entities.

As if thats not enough, he still managed to get Temasek to pour billions into U-Mobile ... another round of head shaking and you just had to clap some more.



Next, lets look at Sime Darby's Annual Report 2009, in the first few lines of the Chairman's Message: "I am pleased to announce that the Group has reported a net profit after tax and minority interests of RM2.3 billion and a Return on Average Shareholders’ Funds (ROA SF) of 10.6 percent, exceeding our Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for FY 2008/09 of RM1.9 billion and ROA SF of 8.8 percent."

This was the headline of Ahmad Zubir's message as CEO: "On behalf of the Board of Directors, I am pleased to report that the Sime Darby Group has exceeded our Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for FY 2008/2009 despite the challenging operating environment during the year. The Group recorded RM2.3 billion in profit after tax and minority interests and Return on Average Shareholders’ Funds (ROA SF) of 10.6 percent, exceeding our Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the year, of RM1.9 billion and 8.8 percent."

Just wondering whether KPIs are the best management tool we have, or are KPIs really effective after all??!! Don't shoot the messenger ....

Citi Is Scrambling To Survive

The near bank nationalisation of Citgroup sent its shares spiraling downwards. Didn't Roubini advocate bank nationalisation? Was the move bad? The government's term sheet proposed the conversion of Citi preferred stock into common at a price of $3.25. The face value of Citi preferred stock is $25, implying 7.69 shares of common to be received per preferred share (at $3.25). If all the preferreds convert, the common shareholders will see a 75% dilution. What that means is that assuming earnings go back to what it was 5 years ago, the EPS would have to see a similar 75% dilution in real EPS just by the sheer amount of new common shares. So, if you think Citi was going back to $40 like in the old days - similar earnings 5 years ago would only make the current Citi share to reach $10, and that is a wildly optimistic view now. Citi should be locked under $5 for the next few years.

Following the announcement, Citigroup traded at around $1.60 on Friday, a preferred share holder would effectively had an an implied value of $12.30 of common stock per preferred share. Citi preferreds traded down to a low price of $4.5 early in the day, after closing at $5.50 Friday, however they quickly inverted and hit a high of $9.25 as people realized the potential arbitrage, before closing for the day at $8.05 on volume of 46.5 million shares. This was an excellent arb opportunity whereby you can short 7.69 shares of common for every share of preferred purchased. This arb is worth nearly 50% return. I do believe that the government's move was "positive" for Citi. However there are some unknowns still in the conversion amount, and added to that the arb opportunity caused persistent selling in the second half of the day.

The uncertainty also affect the arb in addition to shaking down the share price. There was a footnote in the Citi illustrative example of how preferred to common conversion would take place, where Citi noted that the government will provide separate treatment for private and public preferred shareholders: "Ownership assumes conversion of publicly issued preferred stock is done at a significant premium to market, while the U.S. Government's and privately placed preferred are done at par." Which is to say the rest of the preferred stock's conversion rate is still unconfirmed.

The arbs are now hoping that the premium for their publicly purchased preferred shares will be lower than the "guaranteed" 50% return they would pocket if they executed the trade at the end of the day, as otherwise they face massive losses on the conversion. If not, the whole arb trade will collapse and you will see massive short covering in Citgroup shares.

The government's move is good as it will give effective control to the government, hence the bank would be more than likely to be biting the bullet on some of the niggling issues which many troubled banks have been neglecting to do - sell down the toxic assets; work closer with private equity and hedge funds to take some of the toxic assets off the books. The other good from the move is that Citi will save from having to pay dividends/interest on the preferred stocks that have been converted. Don't laugh, that is worth some $10bn over the next few years, which is as good as receiving a capital injection of $10bn to Citi.

The other reason for the sell down is the amount new to be converted stock that is coming onto the market for Citi by the preferreds. The key to raising confidence in Citi was to massively increase its tangible common equity, a measure of capital that shows the value attributable to common shareholders. TCE doesn't include securities such as preferred shares. Citi's TCE prior to the new move was at a shaky 1.5%, now it should go above 4.3%. Citi still has to convince Singapore's GIC and Abu Dhabi I.A. to convert their preferreds - a move not palatable to them but in the end they will have little choice really. Expect Citi shares to swing wildly over the next few days but I expect reality to sink back in and go back above $2, some short covering to come in as well.

p/s photo: Marion Caunter