Tycoon with the Midas touch – The share price of Singapore property developer IPC Corp has almost doubled from $0.122 two days ago   This came after property tycoon Oei Hong Leong raised his stake in the company from 19.7% to 23.4%, leading to speculation of a possible takeover. Formerly an IT company, IPC recently invested in a business hotel in Japan at a cost of S$15.3m. At the current share price, the stock still trades at about 16% discount to its book value.



Each time the tycoon buys into a company, a group of people will follow suit, seemingly thinking that Mr Oei has an uncanny ability to drive shares higher. Well, there have been many such instances, if history is anything to go by. It happened when Mr Oei bought shares in companies such as Natsteel, Tung Lok, Super Group and the former Bil International (now GuocoLeisure). A more recent example was the subscription for shares in United Envirotech. Admittedly, the 20% or so increase in the share price was a comparatively milder response to that of IPC Corp. Incidentally, we note that Mr Oei’s other holdings also include a 3.5% stake in Raffles Education Corp. Could his " Midas touch" also have anything to do with the recent run-up in the share price of this counter?