IWAI'S International Holdings could not have picked a worse corporate motto than the one which appears on the front page of its new listing prospectus published on October 6 last year.
With the benefit of hindsight investors in the company's share can only surmise that 'cross one's fingers' was a corporate logo to describe what some of the interested parties were doing at the time of the listing.
The company directors, the authorised representatives of the companies and the sponsor, Lippo Asia, had better come up with some convincing answers to a growing chorus of questions surrounding Iwai's financial disclosure.
In the prospectus the company states quite clearly that operating profit is not expected to see significant growth in the current financial year to March 31.
Profit attributable, on an adjusted basis, on the elimination of exceptionals, was noted in the listing document for the period ended March 31, 1995, at $20.91 million. Operating profit for the same period was shown at $24.73 million.
On this basis, a potential investor in Iwai's listing might have concluded profit this year would be unexciting and possibly flat at somewhere between $20 million and $25 million. This is definitely the overall impression given by the statements in the prospectus and on a superficial read of the group's trading record.
