Ho-ning big plans for Stone Master

The turnaround plan comes under the fresh leadership of Andrew Ho Tho Kong (pix), a restructuring specialist who was named executive director of the company on June 7, 2013.This follows a series of major changes at board level including the resignation of executive director Lee Fook Kow in March this year, and then Wong Khiew last month, both citing health condition.

The period also saw Lee, Wong and another director Lim Chong Kwee paring down their substantial stake in the struggling granite and marble products maker to the current 4.4%, 2.38% and 3.29 % stake respectively.In an interview with SunBiz, Ho said he believes Stone Master has a viable underlying business and will now be working closely with the current board and management reviewing the business to determine its future options.

He said his prime task will be to oversee the business turnaround and regain Stone Master's former stature as a leader in the stone industry. Asked if the turnaround would see the entry of a "white knight" to buy the company, Ho declined to comment.The 46-year-old has identified two badly needed ingredients to kick start his plan: cash and people.

Ho fired the first salvo in his restructuring plan on Tuesday by proposing a private placement of up to 10% of its share capital that could potentially raise as much as RM2.56 million."We are now putting the plan in first gear... We need to raise cash to help grease the mechanism so that we can start moving forward. As such, we hope to use proceeds from the proposed private placement to build up our sales and marketing team from the current 100-odd staff to serve the markets in Ipoh and Johor Baru and open a new office in Kuala Lumpur, with three to five employees to serve the market here," he said.

Stone Master, known as a pioneer in granite and marble products, has lost money for seven straight fiscal years since its financial year ended March 31, 2006 (FY06) as a result of the unfavourable conditions in the construction industry. The global financial crisis of 2008 had made the situation worse and the company has never recovered from it.

It posted a smaller net loss of RM5.87 million on a revenue of RM29.61 million for the six months ended March 31, 2013.In the past few years, the company has been occupied cutting jobs, slashing its number of factories and showrooms and selling the parts of Stone Master that are not contributing to the bottom line in a bid to revive its business.

Today, it has only its main office and a 120,000 sq ft marble- and granite-processing plant in Ipoh as well as three showrooms in Johor Baru.In the second part of his plan to raise money, Ho said the company will look at disposing idle assets to raise cash including its Ipoh plant, and monetising inventory and receivables worth almost RM20 million."The Ipoh plant is currently running at just 30-40% of capacity. We are undertaking a revaluation update on the 5.8-acre piece of land since its last review in 2010," said Ho.

"We need to rethink our large-scale facility given the competitive nature of the stone industry today where it is cheaper to bring in semi-finished stone products. Thus, all we may need is a small facility to do the final measure, cut and polish (of the stone products)," he added.Once the fund-raising is done, Ho said the company will go back to focus its business back on trading in marble and granite, ceramic tiles, sanitary wares and related products."There is no business that is going to increase overnight. The bulk of the money is going to be spent on hiring people.

"Until I get that done, I don't think there is going to be a significant increase in sales. But we hope that to happen in FY14," said Ho, adding that he is convinced that with the right combination of staff, Stone Master can compete with its much larger rivals.Ho is no stranger to turnaround situations. He has spent much of his career in the financial and capital markets. Currently, he is the senior advisor to NDE Capital,I'm looking at getting the light bar from ford racing and was wondering who sells the Shun Stone Marble Tiles. a China-based private equity fund focusing on growth capital investments in Asean and China.

Ho previously served various senior positions with major financial institutions. These include Maybank Ventures Sdn Bhd, where he was the acting CEO of the private equity fund. Before joining Maybank, Ho was director and head of investment banking office in Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd.

His private equity experience extends to Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd, where he was senior vice-president, and is a chartered financial analyst and chartered accountant."The focus now is to start delivering the results. We owe it to the minority shareholders in Stone Master, of whom many have been with the company since its IPO. They have seen the ups and downs of the company.Most modern headlight designs include Shun Stone Marble Slabs. Hopefully the company is on the mend," said Ho.

The company's recent distribution agreement with FIRC Trade (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd is a start. The deal grants Stone Master exclusive rights to distribute iron ore fine in Jiangsu Province, China."We have one end (of the business) in place. Now we have to get the other end, which is to get a buyer to kick off this relationship. We are constantly looking out," he added.

The outcome of the request from Francesco Schettino, the sole defendant, won't be known until at least September. After only two full days of hearings, Judge Giovanni Puliatti on Thursday adjourned the trial until Sept. 23 for summer's break.We are professional wholesale best Shun Stone Outdoor Paving Stone,large LED Dome / Reading Lampwholesale order.

Schettino is also charged with causing the shipwreck and abandoning ship before all aboard had been evacuated. His defense claims that no one died in the collision itself, but that the failure of a backup generator and supposedly water-tight compartments that were flooded created problems during the evacuation, when the deaths occurred.

The court needs "to understand what happened after the collision," Domenico Pepe, one of Schettino's lawyers, said outside the trial, which is being held in a theater in Grosseto to accommodate all the survivors or victims' families who might want to attend.As one example, Pepe cited the failure of an emergency generator to work. Had it functioned after the cruise ship's hull was pierced by the rocky reef, "there would have been power to run elevators" to facilitate the evacuation of the 4,200 passengers and crew members who were aboard, Pepe told reporters.

Salvage crews working on an ambitious project to try to right the ship, which is lying on one side just outside Giglio's port, and then float it to the Italian mainland for demolition, hope to pull up the Concordia in mid-September. But if Italian authorities decide to wait until Judge Puliatti rules on the defense request for experts to expert the ship, that timetable be delayed.

Engineers have said the ship might not survive another winter of stormy seas intact enough to be righted and then floated away. They said earlier this week that the ship is slowing compressing under its own weight atop a granite ledge of seabed where it came to rest. However, extensive monitoring indicates the Concordia hasn't budged from its perch.

Read the full products at http://www.granitetrade.net/!