meek-investor

RHB Bank's "Ground Shattering Interest Rate" Fixed Deposit promotion was over.   I have found out that ICICI Bank has a HiSAVE Fixed Deposit offering 1.10% p.a. for a 12 months tenure and have added ICICI Bank to my list of high interest FD. The highest interest rate in the market now is 1.10% p.a., offered by 3 banks. 1. ICICI Bank HiSAVE Fixed Deposit is an online fixed deposit account linked with the  HiSAVE online   Savings Account and all monetary inflow and outflow of funds happens online from and to such HiSave accounts.  Minimum placement sum for HiSAVE Fixed Deposit account is $1,000. HiSAVE online savings account starts from as little as $1.  No minimum balance requirements and no monthly fees. 2. CIMB Bank The promotional interest rate now is 1.10% p.a. for 12 months tenure.  Minimum placement sum $25,000. 3. Maybank The promotional interest rate now is 1.10% p.a. for 12 months tenure....

I think we have found the way to destroy Al Qaeda, or for that matter, any terrorist organisation. Don't send the Navy Seals or the National Security Guard or Special Forces. Send in Ramamritham instead ! This post has no place in what is ostensibly a business blog, but this writer could not miss the opportunity to ridicule Ramamritham anywhere and everywhere. So , with apologies , here's the story. When the French forces recently retook much of Mali from terrorists, the press who followed them found a detailed letter and a number of documents in a building which was a base or Al Qaeda. The letter was to a thug and hoodlum called Moktar Belmoktar. It throws light on how Ramamritham has wormed his way even into Al Qaeda. The letter was a "warning letter" to the said terrorist castigating him for not filing expense statements !!! It also was expressing displeasure at his skipping meetings which he was to attend !! He was also castigated for pricing below Head Office in...

SPH is one of my anchoring stocks in my stock portfolio.  The company just announced plan to list a real estate investment trust in July.  The REIT will buy Paragon and the Clementi Mall located in a western suburb for $3.07 billion.  Seletar Mall probably will get on the REIT in 2014 after completion. SPH has been generous with dividend payouts over the years, and hopefully this will also be true for this SPH REIT.  I think I will need to build up my war chest for July action. Although I am a bit disappointed that existing shareholders of SPH are not given any free shares of the new REIT, a one-time dividend payment of 18 cents a share eases some disappointment. An article about the coming REIT: --> Singapore Press plans to raise $540m in retail REIT IPO Monday, 27 May 2013 © 2013 - The Edge Singapore

TOPICS THIS WEEK: Risk, Experimentation and Change Part of running a business and being an entrepreneur is trying new things. We're all about connecting with our community on this podcast. We think the most successful businesses are the ones that engage well with their target market. They build communities. In this week's episode, we talk about changing the podcast to allow us to engage better and more directly with our listeners. In fact, we're thinking about how you can participate in the actual recording of the podcast. One way of doing that is using Google+. Our conversation leads us to discuss how audiences and companies find each other and how they build relationships. Rather than trying to please everyone all of the time, the better strategy is to please a smaller subset of people who really get your business. That involves taking a leap of faith. Risk is part of finding your true audience. The video Links to people and things we mention Chris Brogan New rallying po...

I found some old documents in the back of the drawer and learnt that my father had ventured into the uncharted territory - stocks, in 1961. He had invested into a gold mine preference shares scheme.  Unfortunately, that was an expensive and painful lesson as he was scammed by a friend of the boss. Sometime in 1961, the boss's friend visited his factory and sweet-talked the workers into investing into a gold mine in Mersing, Johore.  The workers were told that the gold mine had huge deposit of gold and the owner of the gold mine was looking for investment money in order to start extracting gold from the mine.  After the gold mine started operation, the owner would list his gold mine on the stock exchange.  The workers who invested into the preference shares would exchange into the shares cheaply.  The company (gold mine) would also pay huge dividends every year. My father's pay was $50 a month back in 1961.  The investment ...

The Business knows that you are excited about this.   In preparation, we think it is absolutely in order that you all tune your internet radios to WFMU and shake your butt off or laugh your face off, depending on what they are serving up at the moment.    This week, The Business welcomes Ken Freedman. Ken Freedman and his only friend Andy Breckman are the hosts of Seven Second Delay on WFMU, the legendary freeform radio station in Jersey City, New Jersey. For the past twenty years, they've picked a "radio stunt" each week, then tried to execute it in just one hour of live airtime. They've chain-translated a Village Voice S&M personal add through 15 languages, then back into English, written the ultimate New York Times "Metropolitan Diary" column entry, then gotten it published, and failed more times than they can count. Every other week, they bring their special potion of anti-comedy trainwrecks to the UCB Theatre.   When they're not on-air, Freedma...

In the good old days, this was an easy cliche. Tax evasion (breaking the law) was a crime. Tax avoidance (minimising paying the tax within the law) was something you were duty bound to do. Whether you are an individual, company, whatever. Period. Now it isn't so clear cut an answer.  And that says something about our times. Witness the case of Apple . It does aggressive tax planning (all within the law). It has a big subsidiary in Ireland and has done a deal with the government there for a low tax rate. It does not bring overseas profits into the US, because it is double taxed then; so it leaves all its overseas profits overseas. All very legitimate. And yet there has been a huge outcry and a Congressional hearing where Apple is accused of not paying "its fair share of taxes". Similar accusations are levied on Amazon, Google and Starbucks in the UK and indeed in many other countries. Nowhere are the authorities claiming they broke the law. They are just angry that these c...