Corporate Visit - Centurion Corporation

First of all I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Centurion Corporation managers. They are kind enough to entertain a small group of retail investors on Saturday morning. I would also like to say thank you to InvestingNote. They organise this half day trip and I found this event is very helpful and meaningful.

The meeting point is at Dwell Student Accommodation @Selegie, one of the student accommodation owned by the company. The accommodation is located next to Kaplan Singapore. Morning was raining heavily, but lucky that it was not raining anymore when I reached there. When I reached there I saw Mr David Phey, the Head of Corporate Communication of Centurion Corporation and two InvestingNote team members were there. Really appreciate that they sacrificed their saturday for a small group of retail investors. We went to Westlite Papan at around 10 am. 

This if the first time I visit a worker accommodation. The building is relatively new. We met the CEO and CIO when we reached. We walked around the accommodation after Mr David Phey gave us a detailed presentation about the company's profile and some financial statement summaries. I realised that the units are quite clean and workers' living condition is quite good. There is also some TV rooms, playing rooms, and a gym in the building. Next to the main building of worker accommodation is a training centre operated by Aspri, a not for profit organisation. The workers get to take responsibilities of their skill development at subsidised cost. According to Aspri director all the courses are fully booked as the courses are quite popular among the workers. I found this training centre is valuable and I believe it should attract more companies to put their workers in this accommodation, so they are able to slowly develop their skills. 

Before we went back to Dwell Student Accommodation @Selegie, we were given a chance to have a short meeting with Centurion CEO and CIO. They mentioned that the company is looking to set up their second student accommodation fund, and looking for investors in Singapore and Hong Kong. They are also looking to increase their accommodation types. During the meeting I asked the CEO what is the marketing channel they are using to promote their student accommodation in China. CEO said they have collaboration with education agencies in China so the agents will introduce Centurion student accommodations to the students. They also employed local employees to do the marketing and they have their official wechat account. 

Unfortunately the meeting is too short for everyone to raise their questions. I guess many people got questions to ask but we have to go back to Selegie as we were already behind the schedule. The student accommodation manager told us that they are also promoting the accommodation through the institutions like Kaplan Singapore. Kaplan Singapore booked three levels of the building and Education First booked one level of the building, then subsequently subcontract to their students. I believe the institution customers are able to get a discount from Centurion, but it can ensure 100% occupancy rate and also the company is able to promote their accommodation through these institutions. The building is quite old but is well maintained. Interesting point to note is that students have to pay 12+1 month rental fee in advance. I guess at least for this accommodation company will not see any bad debt at all. 

The event ended at around 2 pm. This is my first corporate visit trip, and I had a very positive experience. Looking forward for the next event organised by InvestingNote!

Cheers.