MEWAH INTERNATIONAL INC.
(Company Registration No.: CR-166055)
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING TO BE HELD ON 28 APRIL 2021
RESPONSES TO SHAREHOLDERS QUESTIONS
The Board of Directors of Mewah International Inc (the "Company"/ "Mewah" and together with its subsidiaries, the "Group") refers to the announcement of 13 April 2021 relating to Participation in Annual General Meeting 2021 ("AGM"), the invitation to the shareholders to submit questions in advance of the AGM.
The Company would like to thank all shareholders for the questions submitted.
The Appendix sets out the Company's responses to the questions received from the shareholders.
Submitted by Ms Michelle Cheo Hui Ning, Executive Directors and Chief Executive Officer, on 27 April 2021 to the SGX.
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APPENDIX
No. | Question | Company Response |
1. Would you consider taking your company We presently have no such plans. private?
2. | Please enlighten us on the biodiesel plant | We have invested in biodiesel manufacturing facility in Malaysia as part of spreading out |
performance and its plant loadings currently. | the Group's product portfolio risk. Sales revenue from our biodiesel products was lower | |
for FY 2020. This was mainly due to minimal price arbitrage between vegetable oil and | ||
fossil crude oil along with reduced market demand arising from COVID-19 induced | ||
conditions. During FY 2020, Malaysia and Indonesia were less aggressive in rolling out | ||
their mandated B20 and B30 biodiesel programs. However, we believe this demand | ||
slowdown to be a temporary phenomenon and remain committed to the long-term benefits | ||
of having this portfolio within our products basket. |
3. What are the plans for expanding distilling/ refining capacity to benefits from the good palm oil prices mentioned in the chairman's statements?
In light of the high palm oil prices currently and plausibly in the future where are the areas of growth for the group: refining, palm oil by- products including biodiesel?
Are there plans to move Mewah operations/ facilities/ plants closer to our customers such as China and India as Wilmar has done?
During last three decades, we have built 3.5 million MT annual refining capacity in Malaysia. Indonesia has gradually surpassed Malaysia to become the largest palm oil producer globally. Recently, effective from 1 March 2021, we have acquired controlling stake in a palm oil refinery cum packing facility in Indonesia. We will keep evaluating the market dynamics and accordingly chart out our capacity expansion plans.
Over last decade, we have been building our business focusing on a four-pillar strategy of:
- consolidating our position in palm-based oils and fats business
- building specialised applications and customer solutions
- expanding our range of consumer products
- broadening and deepening our marketing and distribution network
Going forward we plan to continue with our above strategy.
As part of our strategy, we keep measuring the market dynamics including the competitive landscape. We remain committed towards increasing our customer penetration across the globe supported by our marketing and distribution subsidiaries across our key markets.
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No. | Question | Company Response |
- As palm oil is essentially a commodity, can the board share with us on their cost control measures and its extent of success on fixed and variable costs?
Palm oil price is a factor of various components such as competitive oils pricing, CPO production as well as market demand. In terms of cost controls, our focus is on controlling our processing costs and overheads. In last two years, we have been able to significantly reduce our overheads e.g., our FY 2020 administrative overheads were US$81.7 million compared to FY 2018 spent of US$88.8 million. In last few years, we have taken various measures such as warehouse automation, increased sales throughput in our marketing & distribution subsidiaries with same overheads etc.
- Apart from scales, where are the resources the Group lacks compared to Wilmar and what are the broad-brush measures or strategies the group have adopted to catch up with Wilmar in revenue and particular profitability?
Our integrated agri-business model is predominantly focused on midstream and downstream activities in palm oil category. Over last seven decades, Mewah has created its own differentiated space in this large global vegetable oil market of approx. 165 million MT per annum consumption.
- What are the KPI of the Group devised to motivate its people and how successful are they.
We recognize that cornerstone of a company's success is its employees and we believe in investing in our people. We ensure that our employees are developed to their fullest potential and their competency are fully recognized and rewarded. We have continuous assessment processes to evaluate and ensure that there is a structured career development for our employees in accordance with their potential, talent and competency. We strive to provide all employees with personal development opportunities and to promote continuous learning through training and development, job rotations and overseas assignments. We believe these measures have been successful with a fair portion of our precious human capital continuously reposing their faith in the company over large number of years.
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