Csf Group Share Discussion Threads

[igoe104] 08/6/2011 16:31

Big sells gone in today, (over million + ) i wonder if that the end of the overhang ?

wonder who selling, one of the directors maybe.

or maybe someone switching accounts.

[chrisb1103] 01/6/2011 12:01

Good results from AIM listed IOM today - eps up 137% to 2.91p (2010: 1.23p) be nice to get some read across interest here. Revenues were up 38% from their 5 UK data centres - current forecasts around eps of 3.7 for y/e mar 12 - that's a pe of 24 at todays 89p and 33(!!) for 125p which is Finncap's new target price.

Makes CSFG look so very cheap by comparison imo.

[john09] 31/5/2011 15:54

Restassured. Could you copy paste the Photo me article from techinvest this weekend pls. Would appreciate it or at leat give me the gist of what it says

Ta

[battlebus2] 31/5/2011 07:40

Yep waiting in anticipation of great trading.

[restassured] 31/5/2011 07:28

Interesting comment on Telecity in this month's Techinvest.Basically comments on the continuing surge in demand for data.


Should bode well for CSFG.Results due any day.

[lizardflipper] 22/5/2011 16:07

I am starting to like the look of this company, however 3 things are confusing me a little.

Looking at the 2010 annual report, it appeared to state that cashflow had increased due to the increased rental income, but then it says that it decreased due to the cost of building CX2. Does anyone have an idea on whether there are any cashflow issues?

Secondly, and more worryingly, is the leaseback deal. I assume that this means they no longer own the datacentre and the leases run out in 6 years. Surely this is a big negative, with the potential for a huge chunk of revenues to disappear.

Lastly, am i wrong to hate the way the P&L was presented with the sale of the centres being included to bump up the figures a huge amount - surely without these figures for this year the profit drops from 9.5m back down to around 2m?

[igoe104] 22/5/2011 13:05

stegrego heres the web-site link.

when you get chance mate can you put it in the header.

[igoe104] 22/5/2011 12:42

Also a write up last week.

Money Week: Gamble of the Week

Internet services and emerging markets are two of the most exciting themes for the next decade. How about combing both? Asian data-centre provider CSF Group does just that. In Malasia it is a 35% market-leader. Its aim is to create an interconnected hub across Asia, ranging from Singapore to Vietnam. Aim-listed CSF was floated in March 2010 at 44p and is a speculative buy at 63.5p according to Money Week.

[penpont] 21/5/2011 23:20

Featured as one of 5 companies with strong growth prospects in an article on Emerging Markets in this weeks IC.

Concludes:

'Valued at 12 times full year eps, falling to 9 times in 2012, CSF is attractively valued'

[cfro] 17/5/2011 18:35

Im holding tight too as boring as this is for the time being.

[restassured] 17/5/2011 18:35

Not long now.Results in june and we should get a sharp rerating.

[battlebus2] 17/5/2011 18:26

Once the market sees the strenght of the next results i think the low PE will slowly rise so holding tight.

[chrisb1103] 17/5/2011 08:56

Yeah restassured, Telecity still riding high at 22 times next years earnings, so we're still looking so cheap here by comparison. Be good to see some buying ahead of the results in July, fwd PE in single figures!

[restassured] 10/5/2011 08:29

Telecity statement bodes well for CSFG


Current trading and outlook
" Demand for premium highly-connected data centre capacity is
strong in Europe and TelecityGroup confirms its positive outlook
for another year of substantial growth in 2011."

[igoe104] 09/5/2011 16:51

The upcoming Malaysian data centers can create a sense of hope among the companies going through the debacle of insufficient data centers. MyTelehaus, CSF Group and Teliti are three Datacenter--for approximately 400 million ringgit, aimed at turning Malaysia into a datacenter hub.

[igoe104] 05/5/2011 12:38

The future looks bright.


The Malaysian government's ambition to transform the country into a world-class datacenter hub is a promising move, but several challenges will need to be ironed out to ensure success, say industry watchers.

Prime Minister Najib Razak last year announced a national masterplan comprising public-private sector economic activities to transform Malaysia into a high-income nation. Dubbed the Economic Transformation Program (ETP) and facilitated by government arm, Pemandu, the scheme seeks to double the country's per-capita income to US$15,000 by 2020.

It encompasses 131 entry-point projects (EPP), which the government says will outline actions required to grow the local economy. One of these involves the upgrading and development of three data center providers--MyTelehaus, CSF Group and Teliti Datacenter--for approximately 400 million ringgit (US$134.6 million), aimed at turning Malaysia into a datacenter hub.

Sudev Bangah, senior research manager at IDC Asean, said the demand for data center and hosting services across Asia-Pacific, excluding Japan, has increased as many enterprises continue to focus on reducing costs and streamlining operations to increase efficiency.

Bangah told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail that a significant portion of these outsourcing contracts in the past year has been focused on datacenter services--and Malaysia is no exception, with IT outsourcing services charting a double-digit growth year-on-year.

"The awareness of technologies such as cloud computing and virtualization makes this more compelling, as consolidation and standardization of IT assets continue to drive demand," he said.

He added that enterprises today face several shortages in terms of capital, security and skillsets, and prefer not to deal with these challenges directly while managing their IT needs.

Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, director for business services at Pemandu, said the Malaysian government believes data centers can play a vital part in the country's economic growth. It expects this sector to contribute a gross national income (GNI) of 2.4 billion ringgit (US$807.5 million) and create some 13,290 jobs by end-2020, said Fadhlullah, who oversees the datacenter initiative.

"We believe most businesses will need data centers and Malaysia has the geographical stability to meet this need," he told ZDNet Asia in an interview. "Our target is to increase sales of Malaysia datacenter floor-space to 2.5 million square feet by 2015 and 5 million square feet by 2020."

Land, utility and bandwidth challenges
Fadhlullah, however, acknowledged that several potential issues could hinder its efforts, including land acquisition, utility and bandwidth tariffs. He said Pemandu is working with local authorities to ensure new players looking to set up data centers in the country receive speedy approvals regarding land acquisition.

"As for utility tariffs, we are working with the national utility board, Tenaga Nasional, to look at how to possibly reclassify data centers as a new economic industry to ensure they get specialized tariffs," he said.

He added that the government this week announced a newly-formed consortium comprising 24 telecommunications companies, which will look at purchasing wholesale cable capacity in a bid to reduce the cost of international broadband subscriptions.

"The consortium is a means to bring the industry together and work in concert to reduce the cost of bandwidth so that all data centers stand to benefit," Fadhlullah explained. "The impact, though, will not be immediate as we need to allow the consortium, which is a private-sector initiative, to formulate and implement its plans."

However, an industry analyst warned there were no clear indicators or conclusions that point to a direct relationship between data centers and a country's economy. John Brand, vice president of research at Springboard Research, said: "Data centers are simply a cost of doing business, rather than providing a positive value contributor to the broader economy."

Brand noted that there would be some minor spillover impact on the broader economy, but these were expected to be small compared to other labor-driven initiatives.

The analyst added that most of such datacenter projections were based on the predicted growth of online services, particularly in the transformation of data centers from being private or local data storage and processing centers, to utility-based services.

"As this part of the industry is still relatively immature, the impact on the economy is more conjecture than fact," he said.

And while growth in storage and processing requirements have driven the need for more datacenter offerings in the market, Brand cautioned that not all data centers will be successful in the long term.

He noted that consolidation will inevitably occur over the next three to five years, and this poses a risk for organizations looking to engage on a long-term basis.

"We believe the most successful datacenter providers will be those that can move beyond the basic tenets of virtualization, to create a truly revolutionary approach to the delivery of IT capacity and capabilities," he said.

Brand added that Malaysia is likely to face several challenges in its bid to become a datacenter hub. "The general requirements for data centers are security, privacy, cost of labor, reliability, cost of energy as well as political and cultural stability--all of which are factors that make regional hubs either desirable or a liability."

A senior telco executive noted that international bandwidth cost remains a huge challenge in Malaysia as there is insufficient competition in the local market to force prices down. "The consortium of players buying in bulk will help, but that should only be the starting point," said the executive, who spoke to ZDNet Asia on condition of anonymity.

He suggested the Malaysian government further liberalize the industry by allowing global players to land their cables in the country without having to terminate their links through the incumbent player. "This is the only way prices of international bandwidth can go down and benefit both consumers at large and businesses running data centers," he added.

Edwin Yapp is a freelance IT writer based in Malaysia.

[cfro] 03/5/2011 18:17

Got my div in my account today atleast. Just have to be patient with the share price now.

[igoe104] 28/4/2011 10:21

This is worth a read, because isnt this csfg main tenant.


Telekom Malaysia: "HSBB is the catalyst for a transformation of our entire company"20.04.110diggsdigg Share5 We speak to Giorgio Migliarina, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer at Telekom Malaysia.

What access technology or technologies is your broadband network based upon and why do you think there is a good business opportunity for broadband in your market?

Right now, the industry is at the inflection point of moving from legacy digital to an Internet Protocol (IP) based network. An IP-based network is expected to completely reshape the present structure of communication systems and access to the Internet. Telekom Malaysia itself has recently migrated its core network onto the latest IP network infrastructure in order to enable the company to build the transformation path towards next-generation networks and service delivery capabilities in the converging communications world. The technologies being deployed are Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) based on Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) standard and very-high-speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2+).

Yes, definitely, there is a good business opportunity for broadband in Malaysia. There is still much room for expansion as the current broadband household penetration is at 55% and Telekom Malaysia is confident it can fill in huge sections of the unserved market.

There's still room for growth as we believe that the Malaysian Broadband market will grow to MYR 3.5bn (USD 1.16bn) in 2011 from MYR 3bn in 2010. The Compound Annual Growth Rate for Malaysian Broadband market 2010-2015 is expected to be 19%.

We are very bullish about growth of our subscriber base, especially with the positive take up of UNiFi and Streamyx among our customers. UniFi is not just about selling bandwidth and speed, it's about providing Malaysians with a unique lifestyle choice that includes opportunities for continuous learning, bringing an integrated digital lifestyle into Malaysian homes with first ever introduction of triple play offering of phone, high-speed Internet and a free basic IPTV offering, HyppTV, with the potential for multiple plays in the future.

Despite the fierce competition, Telekom Malaysia continued to attract new customers and maintained leadership position in the broadband segment with 1.68mn customers as of the end of 2010, a growth of 17.4% from 1.43mn customers a year ago. We also expanded the number of our hotspots from 2,069 at end of 2009 to 10,982 at the end of 2010. We will continue expanding our Wi-Fi areas and expect to reach 28,000 locations nationwide by year end 2011.

Regarding the Government's efforts to push the Economic Transformation Program (ETP), Telekom Malaysia sees this as a business opportunity whereby each Entry Point Projects will require efficient communication service. Telekom Malaysia has a clear stake in the Government's Economic Transformation Program (ETP) and will play our role in transforming the nation via our involvement in the Entry Point Projects (EPPs) – mainly in the Communications Content and Infrastructure (CCI) as well as business services areas. These include positioning Malaysia as a world-class data centre hub, ensuring broadband for all, extending the reach, offering smart network, connecting 1Malaysia, deploying 1Malaysia payments, nurturing creative content, enabling e-Healthcare, e-learning and e-Government.

We mean to make good on our aspiration to become Malaysia's broadband champion and the leading next-generation communications provider.

What social or economic benefits will your broadband service bring to your country?

HSBB is one of the catalysts to fuel the growth of a knowledge society, and will be critical to achieving the Government's vision of a high-income economy. It has been estimated that every 10% increase in broadband penetration boosts GDP by an average of 1.3%.

HSBB is an open access network that will enable more value-added content and applications from third-party providers, hence, providing opportunities for local companies involved in these areas. It will also catalyse human capital and nurture local industry in the production of content, creative multimedia and e-commerce and other related sectors.

Broadband can also enable e-government services delivered to the general public with high-speed connectivity and enriched online content and applications. With HSBB, it would help to boost research and development, innovation and creativity efforts in public research institutions.

Can you give an idea of your network's expected footprint and timeframe for rollout?

We are very much on track with HSBB. To date, the total number of UniFi customers is more than 70,000, whilst premises passed exceeded the 800,000 level on the back of 61 exchanges. These include the inner Klang Valley, Iskandar Malaysia, and Northern Corridor Economic Region.

While we are on track to meeting the UniFi target of 1.1mn premises passed covering 78 exchanges by end 2011, due attention will be given to ensure the rollout of UniFi is effectively managed from the aspects of cost effectiveness and customer satisfaction. UniFi sales are steadily increasing as service installation capabilities being progressively ramped up.

The Company is targeting to achieve 1.3mn premises passed by the end of 2012. In line with Telekom Malaysia's continued commitment to providing fair and equitable opportunities for other service providers, a landmark agreement was signed with an access seeker in December 2010 to provide HSBB (Access) service on a wholesale arrangement.

How do you segment the market to become a leading broadband service provider?

I must say that HSBB is the catalyst for a transformation of our entire company.

This year marks the transformation of the organisation as we focus on customer segmentation with the Line of Businesses (LOBs), i.e., Consumer, SME, Enterprise, Government, New Media, Wholesale and Global. These LOBs are headed by leaders that make up of the changing face of a dynamic Telekom Malaysia.

The rapid pace of technological change is a challenge in itself and this is at the very core of the telecommunication industry. We have now embraced the IP development and are in the midst of transforming the network to a fully IP network.

We are transforming our systems. We are collapsing 700 systems to 300 and eventually to only 70. Other telcos in the world are coming to learn how we are doing it, which is very encouraging.

We are also changing the way we communicate with our customers and to the market – from increasing our use of social media to the language and manner we go to market. We have also simplified our product offerings to the market with our bundled packages and triple play service. Also, we are working to improve our SLAs to be able to better serve from a technology and operational point of view for each of these segments.

I must say that the HSBB project is not just a transformation of Telekom Malaysia's network infrastructure into an all Internet protocol (IP) network, but more importantly it carries with it the hope of the nation in pushing Malaysia into its next economic development phase. For Telekom Malaysia itself, it is the catalyst of change for a total transformation with respect to its people and the way we do business.

To achieve this, we will focus our efforts on the 4Ps – Product, Platform, Process and People.

Product

• HSBB is ushering a new era for Telekom Malaysia, enabling a host of new generation IP-based services for consumers and enterprise
• Consumer - UniFi is the first of such services, offering a premier triple-play experience with best-of-class network quality
• Wholesale – position Telekom Malaysia as a neutral service provider by encouraging Other Local Network Operators (OLNOs), Application Service Providers (ASPs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other access seekers to ride on both its Business As Usual (BAU) and High Speed Broadband (HSBB) network infrastructure.
• SME - deliver affordable and holistic communications and connectivity to Malaysian SMEs
• Government - aspires to be the Government of Malaysia trusted partner towards elevating its public service delivery. Telekom Malaysia supports the Government in achieving EPPs' goals of ensuring broadband for all, deepening e-Government and establishing e-Learning for students and professional training.
• Enterprise - grow Malaysia as an outsourcing hub – to attract both offshore and nearshore opportunities into Malaysia – particularly for our managed data centre services and our BPO services.
• Global - International Ethernet Private Line (IEPL), Global IP Transit, Global Ethernet and Global IPVPN

Platform

• With NGN, Telekom Malaysia will be migrating to an end-to-end IP infrastructure, on par with the best of advanced nations
• Apart from being the foundation for new products, NGN will minimise total cost of ownership, and allows for cost savings across the organisation

Process

• With infrastructure and product changes, HSBB is the catalyst for transformation of business processes towards meeting new challenges
• Process changes are anchored around customer centricity and aim to increase efficiency and competitiveness

People

• Telekom Malaysia employees are being trained in new technologies, putting them amongst pioneers in IP technology
• Along with technical training, HSBB also involves cultural changes, to adapt Telekom Malaysia to face new challenges and foster talent
• One of the most important aspect of transformation lies in communicating with our people on the importance of high performance culture
• Our Group Human Capital Management team also facilitates various Leadership and Employee Engagement Programs as to achieve One Mindset culture. This include our internal programs such as Turun Padang, Leaders Dialogue, Top Management Role Modelling, Leader's Communication and Teaming with Passion Programs (TWP) to name a few.

[battlebus2] 26/4/2011 09:33

Welcome igoe104 hopefully your investment will bear fruit. Been here since the float and expecting £1 atleast midterm.

[igoe104] 26/4/2011 09:30

Just got in here with 51000 shares, looks a good solid long term buy.

[restassured] 26/4/2011 07:33

The clear message from the US tech titans last week was the continued explosion of data as more and more devices become connected.They cited the dramatic increase in video and other data heavy applications.

[chrisb1103] 25/4/2011 12:16

Yeah true cfro, however am hoping we may get one or two further announcements before then which may ignite some further interest here: tenancies/customers for CX5, news of progress on the indonesia JV which imo sounds v exciting with potential to increase their capacity by 20% and offer entry into a new market with an established key player. Also we know they're looking for opportunities elsewhere such as singapore - a bit of news of anything there could also be a great catalyst to move us up. In the meantime it's pay day here on friday :)

[cfro] 23/4/2011 17:46

Gone a bit quiet again here. And now we've had the pre-close update we have no further news to look forward to untill results some time around July 21st...which is quite a wait. We do have to divi of course in the mean time, but this needs a good catalyst imo to really get this one going. PE only 9 and fantastic growth still to come.