James Morton’s February letter for the Asia Dividend Equity Fund is now available via the Perinvest website. One of the fund’s current holdings is the Asian Pay Television Trust (APTT), an SGX-listed business trust focused on pay-TV businesses in Asia. 

APTT has an investment mandate to acquire controlling interests and to own, operate and maintain mature, cash generative pay-TV and broadband businesses in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. Their seed asset is Taiwan Broadband Communications Group. The trust’s current manager (Macquarie) recently announced the sale of their entire interest in APTT to Dynami Vision Pte. Ltd.

Fund comments from the February letter are below (paraphrased):

• Company has faced difficulty with its expansion into adjacent areas as a result of difficult content acquisition negotiations, but the core business generates strong cash flow
• Expansion capex period is now ending – all the cash flow will be available and should be more supportive of dividends going forward
• APTT’s share price rose ~25% in February as the company announced it will be able to maintain last year’s dividend amount
• Takeover of the management company has received regulatory approval; await their plans in light of their involvement with a telecoms business in Taiwan

Here is the link to APTT’s investor presentation for the period ended December 31, 2016.