News in brief.....

Plastoform Holdings: As we reported over the weekend, this small-cap has attracted the buying of big-name investor Ang Kong Hua, formerly Chairman of Singapore Telecommunications and the Securities Industry Council.

However, two funds are cutting their exposure, as the table shows. Seems like a case of profit-taking. Or they could be raising funds to pay for their Plastoform rights shares entitlement.

Astralink and Winmark were part of an investor group that acquired a 26.627% stake, or 90 million shares, in PlastoForm, a manufacturer of compact speakers, from controlling shareholder Konkin Ltd, for HKD 11.422 mil (USD 1.468 mil) last year.

Their purchase price was 2.0 cent a share (price unadjusted for current rights issue).

The stock closed at 2.7 cents, up 0.1 cent, yesterday with 1.444 million shares changing hands.

Recent story: JEL, PLASTOFORM: Big investors getting big in small caps

China Sky Chemical Fibre: Its CEO has quit in anger (or for health reasons, as he claimed) as have the CFO and independent directors for their own reasons, but an unnamed person has injected a touch of defiance and irony into an announcement issued last night by the company.

The announcement said The Singapore Exchange had declined to furnish information China Sky had requested on the basis that the matter is now under investigation.

Then here comes the jibe: “In the light of this, the Company is unable at this time to provide any other information on this matter but will continue its' efforts to persuade the Exchange to be more transparent in its' dealings with the Company so that its’ stakeholders can be fully appraised of important developments concerning the Company.”

“Persuade the Exchange to be more transparent in its dealings with the Company” – has any listco ever had to "persuade" the regulator to be more transparent in its dealings?

China Sky was informed by the Exchange on 16 February 2012 of a joint announcement by the Singapore Police and the Monetary Authority of Singapore that the police are investigating possible breaches of the Securities and Futures Act by the Company and its directors.

The Company said it is not aware of any such investigation and requested the Exchange for more information -- in particular whether such investigation is "in any way connected with the subject matter of Originating Summons 11 of 2012/K and/or the Exchange's directive dated 16th November 2012."

As an aside, the China Sky announcement last night could be the first time a corporate announcement doesn’t carry the customary ‘By order of The Board’, or the name of some authority of the company. So who wrote it?

Elvin Tan, Chairman & CEO of XMH - the No.1 distributor of Mitsubishi marine diesel engines - wants to expand his company's customer base to include emerging markets such as Vietnam, India and Brazil. Main photo by Leong Chan Teik

Note: Purchases up to 20 Feb 2012.

XMH Holdings: The share buyback continues…..The company, which is Mitsubishi’s No.1 distributor for marine diesel engines, has bought back 4.37 million shares since the start of the year.

In total, since its listing last year, it has bought back 9.9 million shares, or 2.48% of its issued share capital.

XMH is flush with cash: It held net cash of S$39.1 million as at 31 Oct 2011.

For the half year ended Oct 2011, XMH reported a 45% decline y-o-y in net profit to S$2.989 million.

It was affected by mainly the rescheduling of deliveries from project delays, delays in supply and uncertainty in global markets which may persist for several quarters.

Recent story: Buying spree by ARA group CEO, XMH buyback programme