Marginal safety with dividend counters -- SPH and Starhub

This is a mathematical exercise I did with my holdings in Singapore Press Holdings.


A short history of my relationship with SPH
Around the 2008~2009 era, I bought in 6000 shares of SPH at an average of $3.65
Mid of 2014, I bought in 2000 shares of SPH at $3.98 but booked in as $3.65 on my portfolio as I used "profits" from sales of other shares to offset the difference.

So, I took it as 8000 shares of SPH at $3.65 average.

With Starhub, it was quite simple. Majority were bought in 2009, with some in 2010. In summary, the average cost of Starhub was $1.90.

2015 came, and all the way till this year, I have been busy with wedding, with family, with children, with business, etc, such that I have not spent much time to look at equities. That's up till recent months, where I took interest again.

It was really eyes off market for majority of the time. I knew SPH was in a sunset industry. I knew. But I did not take any actions to sell.

Starhub was being disrupted by MNVOs. I knew. But I did not take any actions too. On my old blog post, I was considering to sell at $4.70. But I did nothing. [That was $47k on hindsight.]

I mean, it was "buy for the long term" right?
And SPH declined to $1.98 while Starhub declined to $1.34.

With that, I have actually discussed with friends before, on how the dividends from SPH and Starhub actually helped buffered the drop in price for me, and how "lucky" I was. But it was just a feel. There was no actual calculations until I did it today.


For SPH
Checking on the historical dividends paid out,
from start of 2010 till today, the dividends paid out was at least $2.005 for 6000 shares
from mid 2014 till today, the dividends paid out was $0.855 for 2000 shares

If dividends were used to offset the "cost" of the shares, it would have been $1.9325.
At the current market price of $1.98, there is still a tiny profit of $0.0475.
[Of course, when it falls below $1.93, it would be a loss instead.]
The gain/loss is almost 0%.

As of now, fixed deposits would have done much better than the amount of SPH. But at the very minimum, the capital had been withdrawn gradually via dividends (and moved into other counters and into business), and it would have been the same if I had left it in cash and not bought SPH.

For Starhub
Checking on the historical dividends paid out,

from start of 2010 till today, the dividends paid out was $1.815 for all 10000 shares

If dividends were used to offset the "cost" of the shares, it would have been $0.085.
So it is almost free now.
Or another way to see it, if I sell at today's price, it is still at 66% gain (dividends + loss) over 9 years, about 7% a year.


Not having the time to follow the market and just holding the counters passively
Not having the conviction to sell when they were priced too high
==> these have costed me quite a fair bit of profit.
I tend to think too long upon selling.

Fortunately, similar to the case of SMRT previously, dividends have helped buffered a fair bit of the difference.


The question then becomes.... should I sell now or not.
For Starhub, I am not confident that they will pick up anytime soon. However, the shares are almost free, and any amount I sell is a profit.

For SPH, I am quietly positive on their properties portfolio for now. But I am also unsure whether I should sell it because I do think it is at fair value at the moment.

Thinking thinking thinking...