With 400% return, best action in Asia want to avoid fame

                    

This is the action of better performance in Southeast Asia, with a return of almost 400 percent for investors in three years.

However, the Malaysian company Hap Seng Consolidated has remained outside the radar of many people.

The conglomerate of real estate sectors, plantations and construction materials controlled by Lau Cho Kun managed to double its profits after tax in the last four years amid falling palm oil prices and the slowdown of the housing market in 2014 here.

Similar sizes of companies such as Thai Indorama Ventures and PT Charoen Pokhphand Indonesia, are covered by more than a dozen analysts, while Hap Seng, the 23th largest company in Malaysia, is not monitored since 2012.

"If you look at the culture of our company, see that we really do not like to scream and tell everyone how good we are," said managing director Edward Lee in an interview in his office in Kuala Lumpur. "We want to deliver results."

The Hap Seng, a name which means unity and success, has its roots in a small company created by its founder Lau Gek Poh, who migrated from China to Sabah on the island of Borneo in the 1930s.

The company has transformed the vertical integration into an art form, entering the fertilizer industry to complement its palm oil operations, for example, and grew by US $ 358 million in 2000 acquisitions to date. Currently the company seeks to increase purchases to take advantage of the increase in its share price.

Hunt for acquisitions

"The biggest opportunity right now is to purchase good assets, whether in plantations, either in real estate," said Lee, who has 600 million ringgit (US $ 145 million) in funds on hand to acquisitions. "Increase your company organically takes some time. When there are good companies to acquire the period of management is much lower. "

The Hap Seng rose 55 percent in the last 12 months, the biggest rise MSCI South East Asia Index, which is made up of 157 members, in contrast to a decline of 6.4 per cent of the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index. In the last three years, the company has 396 percent return to investors, including dividends, and reported a profit after tax of 908 million ringgit in 2015, against 753 million ringgit a year earlier.

The Hap Seng closed unchanged trading at 17 hours by local time, trading near the record high registered on 20 May.

Lau, the discreet nephew of late founder, has 74 percent of the company. He is the seventh richest person in Malaysia, with a fortune of US $ 1.62 billion, according to Forbes Magazine.