TNG Digital Becomes Unicorn in Malaysia, Mulls IPO, CIMB Says
'We are very confident that TNG is already qualified as a unicorn,' Gurdip Singh Sidhu, country head of Malaysia, CIMB Bank Bhd., told reporters on Tuesday. 'The question of IPO is something we will assess, but it's not something we are rushing into.'
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11 minutes ago
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Hong Leong Industries Berhad's (KLSE:HLIND) investors will be pleased with their stellar 127% return over the last five years
Generally speaking the aim of active stock picking is to find companies that provide returns that are superior to the market average. And the truth is, you can make significant gains if you buy good quality businesses at the right price. For example, long term Hong Leong Industries Berhad (KLSE:HLIND) shareholders have enjoyed a 63% share price rise over the last half decade, well in excess of the market return of around 3.7% (not including dividends). However, more recent returns haven't been as impressive as that, with the stock returning just 18% in the last year, including dividends. Let's take a look at the underlying fundamentals over the longer term, and see if they've been consistent with shareholders returns. AI is about to change healthcare. These 20 stocks are working on everything from early diagnostics to drug discovery. The best part - they are all under $10bn in marketcap - there is still time to get in early. While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS). Over half a decade, Hong Leong Industries Berhad managed to grow its earnings per share at 11% a year. This EPS growth is reasonably close to the 10% average annual increase in the share price. Therefore one could conclude that sentiment towards the shares hasn't morphed very much. Indeed, it would appear the share price is reacting to the EPS. The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image). Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here. What About Dividends? As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. In the case of Hong Leong Industries Berhad, it has a TSR of 127% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return. A Different Perspective It's good to see that Hong Leong Industries Berhad has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 18% in the last twelve months. And that does include the dividend. That's better than the annualised return of 18% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 1 warning sign with Hong Leong Industries Berhad , and understanding them should be part of your investment process. We will like Hong Leong Industries Berhad better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of undervalued stocks (mostly small caps) with considerable, recent, insider buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Malaysian exchanges. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Sign in to access your portfolio
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Declining Stock and Solid Fundamentals: Is The Market Wrong About SMRT Holdings Berhad (KLSE:SMRT)?
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Discussing Some of the Season's Hottest Earnings Reports
In this podcast, Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner and contributors Matt Frankel, Jon Quast, and Jonathan Wilder discuss: Earnings disappointments from Tesla and Chipotle. AI-powered growth from Alphabet and ServiceNow. IBM's surprisingly strong AI business. Figma's IPO. (Note: This podcast was recorded before Figma started trading.) To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy. A full transcript is below. Don't miss this second chance at a potentially lucrative opportunity Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you'll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a 'Double Down' stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you're worried you've already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it's too late. And the numbers speak for themselves: Nvidia: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2009, you'd have $468,815!* Apple: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2008, you'd have $41,770!* Netflix: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2004, you'd have $636,563!* Right now, we're issuing 'Double Down' alerts for three incredible companies, available when you join , and there may not be another chance like this anytime soon.*Stock Advisor returns as of August 4, 2025 This podcast was recorded on July 23, 2025. Matt Frankel: Google is spending even more than expected on its AI infrastructure, and Chipotle had a so so second quarter. Motley Fool Money starts now. I'm Matt Frankel. I'm joined by my fellow longtime analyst Jon Quast, as well as the Motley Fools co founder and CEO Tom Gardner. Later in the show, we're going to be joined by analyst Jonathan Wilder. Today we're going to look at some recent earnings from Tesla, Chipotle, Alphabet, service now in IBM, and a little bit later, we are going to look at the Figma IPO that is coming up real soon. First, we're going to put Tesla's results under the microscope. It wasn't a big surprise, but Tesla reported a really weak second quarter. Automotive revenue was down 16% every year. The company has been losing EV market share to traditional automakers like GM. Some will say that Tesla's long term thesis is about a whole lot more than vehicle sales. Jon, what are your thoughts on this? Jon Quast: Look Matt, I think if you're buying Tesla's stock today, you're not buying for the next year, you are looking for the next decade. Look, the report, it's shocking to see its primary revenue generator. Cars have a 16% drop. For any other company, this would be all out panic, but a lot of people say this is just vehicle sales for Tesla. First and foremost of those would be CEO Elon Musk. He says, on the earning call, everything with this business comes down to one word and that's autonomy. The idea is this company will make far more money in the future with its self driving software, with its robot taxis, with its optimist robot. All that is autonomy and that's really the thesis that Tesla Bowles and the CEO Elon Musk have for the company. Matt Frankel: Direct question here. Do you think Tesla's a buy right now? Jon Quast: Yeah. As you're looking at it, if you're thinking through this grid of autonomy, if you're thinking through the grid of cars, then there's trouble right now. If you're thinking through the grid of autonomy, you really just have to extend that viewpoint way out because this isn't going to happen right away. Musk said that he's eyeing robot taxis for half the US population by the end of this year. But keywords there include probably and pending approval. Spoiler alert I'm almost positive there won't be that much regulatory approval by the end of the year. When it comes to optimist robot, look, they're trying to scale that up, but they're still working on the prototype Number 3 this year and hoping to get that done before the end of the year. I think that you're looking not at 2025 when it comes to Tesla, you need to be thinking 2035 if you're buying into this concept of autonomy today. Matt Frankel: Tom, I'd like to get your opinion on this. One of the key quotes that stood out to me from the earnings release was from Elon Musk. He said, we could probably have a few rough quarters, specifically referencing tariffs and the EB tax credits expiring. There's a lot at play here. How do you see the next year or so playing out for Tesla? Tom Gardner: Well, I think it's going to be a bad year by any normal standard for a great growth company. This is not going to be a good year, but Elon Musk and Tesla. Tesla is a lot more than Elon Musk. I'm not meaning to diminish the huge impact he has on the business, but this is a massive company now and we have to understand that the really great companies aren't thinking about the next year. Jeff Bezos talked about this all the time at Amazon. Sometimes as analysts, we get really focused on what does this quarter look like? What's happening with the next 12 months for this business? But great business leaders are really looking forward much farther than that, we have to remember that in the backdrop for Tesla, they have $30 billion cash in net cash on their balance sheet. They have so much more capital, such a stronger balance sheet than anyone in automobiles. Musk's bet here, Tesla's bet is that we are moving to autonomy. It might take longer, there might be some issues in regulatory process on autonomous driving, but robot taxis are live and awesome. We see it with Waymo. We see a lot of high customer satisfaction, willingness to pay more. Obviously, there's not tipping going on, so you can pay a little extra, but it's going to be a premium feature. The last thing I'll say in my belief that Tesla will beat the market over the next five years. I do actually agree and have for a long time with what Musk said on the earnings call which is that he thinks Tesla will be the largest company in the world if autonomy plays out. I don't think that there's much question as whether it's going to play out. We'll see whether he's right about what will happen with Tesla. But remember, in the backdrop the idea is to have a million optimist robots in less than five years. There is, as Jon says, a lot that you're holding onto in belief. Let's see if this really plays out. I will say in hidden gems we've been an island because we're the only thing in the Motley Fool recommending the stock since 2012 with over 60 recommendations. The first one at about $2 a share. It's played out very well for us, but you cannot own the stock if a 30-50% decline in the price of the shares is going to knock you out because there's just no way you're going to avoid that. This stock will be down 40-60% multiple times. Every two or three years, you should expect a 30-40% decline in stock, in my opinion, and those have been and I believe will continue to be great opportunities to add. Matt Frankel: Let's pivot to Chipotle's earnings real quick. Unlike Tesla, investors are not that excited about what happened. They gave investors a not so pleasant surprise. They lowered their same store sales guidance for the year, same store traffic declined by 5% year over year. Tom, I know you follow Chipotle pretty closely as well. Is the week's second quarter something investors should really be worried about? Tom Gardner: Not the quarter in itself, Matt, as we discussed with long term thinking for a business like Tesla. However, I'm on the record and my conviction is that, for example, Starbucks will be a better stock over the next five years than Chipotle. Part of that is just straight up Brian Nichol, the CEO who left Chipotle and is now at Starbucks. Is Brian Nichol closer to Michael Jordan, hoops fans know that Chicago Bulls won six NBA championships in eight years. Then when Jordan left in 1998 they have never been back into the championship series again. Sometimes you have an extraordinary leader and I think that is the case with Brian Nichol. My fear for Chipotle is that they're going to lose premium positioning now. We see flattening out same store sales growth. Restaurant margins in decline and obviously in this economic environment, which I think will persist because of a lot of the changes in the technology landscape and what will happen with employment, consumers are looking for discounts and getting lower priced protein in the form of chicken. Chipotle has has a billion and a half in cash flow. This is not a company in trouble at all. My fear is that it will become more of an operating company now rather than a vision driven business. That makes me think that this will be at best a market performer here over the next five years. As I said, I think Starbucks will outperform Chipotle with Brian Nichol as Starbucks a CEO. Matt Frankel: It's really important to put the quarter into context. Jon, just to name a few things. We got the initial tariff announcements at the start of the second quarter, stocks briefly plunged into a bear market. Consumers started becoming really cautious about discretionary spending, especially when that was going on. What are your thoughts on Chipotle as we head into the second half of the year? Jon Quast: Look Matt, this is anecdotal, but I don't know personally, a single person who saw a tariff announcement on the news and said, Honey, maybe we should skip our Chipotle order this week. I would say that Chipotle is getting more pushback from other things. As Tom mentioned a minute ago, perhaps there's even a perception on value and portion sizes. This did actually come up last year with the company and they had to address it head on. It takes time to change a consumer perception of the business, whether it's real or it's just perceived, it takes time. I think we're still seeing that play out with the traffic being down, they didn't take any pricing. They've been taking pricing in recent years and getting to this point where I think consumers are reaching their limit. That is playing against them right now. I think that is what's happening rather than tariffs being something that are influencing consumers. Look I think that long term, I also agree with Tom that I think this is a company that is still fantastic operationally. Even with a rough quarter, you're looking at 18% operating profit margins. I know restaurants that would be happy with half of that. Long term, I think this still a company with a lot of promise, it's going to add many new restaurants in coming years. It's going to generate a lot of cash flow. I would agree though, is this going to become more of an operating thing? I'm not really sure that the unit economics are going to recover fully this year. It's going to take time to win back some consumers that have been lost. Matt Frankel: Next up, we're going to take a look at Alphabet's quarter, and it was a strong one. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. MALE_1: Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? Well, with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. You can even target them by job title, industry, company, role, seniority, skills, company revenue, and do I say job title yet? Get started today and see how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. To get 100 pounds off your first campaign, go to to claim your credit. Terms and conditions apply. Matt Frankel: Another one that just reported. Alphabet just reported really impressive results throughout its business. This is the Google parent company, of course. Google Cloud revenue was an extremely strong point with 32% revenue growth. That was an acceleration in the second quarter. Really, one of the biggest takeaways that I got from the report is that the AI investments they're making seem to be working, and management now expects to spend $85 billion in CapEx this year, primarily on building data centers and AI infrastructure up from the previous estimate of 75 billion. I'd love to get the thoughts from both of you but Jon, we'll start with you. What are your thoughts on the quarter and this aggressive AI investment strategy? Jon Quast: Yeah, we human beings are so bad when it comes to big numbers like this. You said it just so casually and so many people are. But let's stop for a second. They raised their capital expenditure guidance by $10 billion. With this money you could buy Campbell Soup Company, 150-year-old business with products in every store across the United States. They could buy Huntington Engles. This is one of the only companies capable of building a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. That's just the amount that they raised the guidance by 10 billion. If you're talking 85 billion now, that's bigger than the GDP of Croatia, Sri Lanka, Panama. That is what they're spending this year on capital expenditures, and that's just one company in one year. This AI trend is unbelievable. When you look at the spending ratcheting up like that, I get really excited thinking about who is on the receiving end of those dollars. There's going to be spending on the GPUs. There's going to be spending on data centers. Power needs are going to be going up. There are so many ways that this can trickle throughout the economy that gets me really excited. Matt Frankel: Tom, all this AI spending could be worth it if they're getting a return and it looks like so far they are. What are your thoughts on just this general trend toward billions and billions of dollars being pumped into the AI infrastructure right now? Tom Gardner: Yeah, the first thing is that the reports of Google's demise have been greatly exaggerated. They've been making transitions in their search with Gemini. I'll talk about that in a second, but the business is fundamentally on very solid footing and now they are succeeding and utilizing that AI in profitable ways and breakthrough ways in their overall ecosystem. Google is a Cloud and AI story, and companies that aren't in the Cloud today and aren't accelerating AI every single day are going to be in deep, deep trouble and it's going to come a lot faster than people think. On the Cloud front, Google Cloud is taking market share now from AWS. Their revenue run rate for Google Cloud is $50 billion. Their operating margins raised up to 20% this quarter. Google Cloud is vibrant and a force for the company. On the AI front, Google's scaling Gemini across all those search. Search is essentially becoming a private label brand for Google now, like Kirkland at Costco or 365 at Whole Foods. The private label brand search, 60% of all searches are being resolved without any user click. Think about that. The Gemini feature where you're getting that AI expression when you search something on a mobile screen takes up 75% of screen space. Google is all in on Cloud and AI, and one of the ironies I see with that $85 billion CapEx and one of the things I see about that increase of 10 billion, as Jon said, up to $85 billion in CapEx is also a company that will be working people out of jobs at Google. What that is telling us is that this automation is real. It is significant. People who are investing in AI companies, but not using AI in their everyday life and at their companies are going to fall so far behind so quickly now. Google is just one of the many large technology companies that are demonstrating. This is real. This is enormous. We're betting our entire company to make sure that we're in leadership position in our category. For Google shareholders, thank heavens for that because if Google had fallen behind further, it would be harder and harder for them to catch up both on the Cloudfront and in terms of AI applications. The one caution I have for Google shareholders is just anti competitive practices and whether the regulators are going to get involved with that Gemini search now. Because Gemini search is saving them. They may be a decline in search coming to the Google platform because you can get so much right off Chat GPT or Cloud, Grok, etc, perplexity. But that Gemini application is bringing more and more revenue into search for Google. They're actually on solid footing with their search and the business is on solid footing and if they don't run into regulators, I think you've got a double digit market outperformer in Google from here. Matt Frankel: Tom, speaking of AI investment, service now I know that's a company you follow. They just posted a really strong second quarter. That was in my opinion, the strongest earnings report as far as the surprise of all the ones we're talking about. I believe their CEO would agree with you. Bill McDermott said in the earnings release, every business process in every industry is being refactored for agentic AI. Even after today's upward move, the stock's still down in 2025. For one, I'm pretty sure you agree with their CEO, but two, what do you make of their future growth prospects now? Tom Gardner: Well, I think the growth prospects are bright for service now. They have excellent underlying financials. You see 30% operating margins just about just short of that, 98% renewal rates among their customers. This is a fantastic business being run quite successfully. I do agree, as you mentioned and mentioned from Bill McDermott, that AI is the new UI that all future product development is coming through AI, fundamentally, all B to C experiences, all consumer experiences and dig will be on AI applications. The one question I have as a service now shareholder ourselves at the Motley Fool is the company has a $200 billion market cap. I think it can outperform the market, but we see those great earnings leading to a marginal increase in the stock today and that's partially just because it's such a richly valued company. A lot of element areas of the market are richly priced right now. I just be patient. Every time you get a chance to buy service now when it's down 10 or 15%, I take advantage of that, and I think you'll be rewarded with profitable investments. Matt Frankel: Next up, we're going to take a look at IBM's earnings real quick and Figma's upcoming IPO. I'm excited to talk about that. MALE_1: LD super six fruit and veg comes with a freshness guarantee from just 29 peach red grape fruit, spring onions, pinkeds, apples, and mixed peppers, plus British Jersey roll potatoes and cherries, and the cherry on top. Amazing LD value in store now. LD which cheapest supermarket 2024. Products and prices may vary subject to availability. Matt Frankel: Jon, IBM shares are down after earnings despite beating estimates on both the top and bottom lines. The key reason seems to be that the management team is really cautious right now. The CEO said some clients are being cautious due to trade tensions, US federal spending is down, and there are a few other reasons. What are your thoughts on IBM's quarter and is the stock a buy right now? Jon Quast: Yeah, I was surprised that the stock was down after looking over the numbers. Most of the metrics were up and above expectations. Of course, we should keep in mind that with the drop it's still outperforming the S&P 500 over the last year and year to date so context matters I think. But look when it comes to IBM, I think it's really easy to dismiss it from the artificial intelligence conversation because it's such an old business. It doesn't scream AI to me, but all these businesses out there right now are trying to figure out how do use AI in our company and many of them don't know how to do that. That means that they need consulting. It turns out that IBM is pretty good at this. CEO Arvin Krishna said it's book of business for generative AI is now at 7.5 billion and accelerating. Essentially, companies are coming to IBM and looking to how do we integrate AI into what we're doing. That means that they're really actually pretty well positioned and probably better positioned than a lot of investors give them credit for. Now, granted, IBM only expects about 5% revenue growth this year. Usually when I'm looking at a tech stock to buy, I want to see a little bit better growth in this. That said, over the last couple of years I've just had this growing conviction that IBM is better positioned than people give them credit for. For me, it is a stock to watch. Matt Frankel: Well, maybe Warren Buffet shouldn't have sold it when he did. Now let's get to the story that I've been really looking forward to. We're going to talk about Figma's IPO. Jonathan, I want to bring you in on this. We're starting to see a resurgence in IPO activity and one big, highly anticipated IPO that's about to go public is Figma. Before we dive in, can you just give us a 32nd description of what Figma does? Jonathan Wilder: Figma is essentially a Google Docs, essentially for UIUX, it allows collaboration between multiple designers to create rapid prototypes which can then be put into the prototype present feedback and iterate loop, which most corporations use to develop new products. That's essentially what they do. Matt Frankel: Talking to you before the show, I think it would be fair to say, maybe this is an understatement that you're not entirely bullish on the growth story here. Can you tell us why you're approaching Figma with so much caution? Jonathan Wilder: First came out in 2012. They are very much, in my view attached to a an older way of developing products, which again, going back to that is very much the prototype present feedback and iterate. That process can take days, weeks or even months in a typical corporation. With generative AI, that can go down to literally 30 minutes. Instead of getting one prototype back from a design team, you're getting 5-10 prototypes back in less than a day. That alone is a huge disruption for Figma. It's a huge disruption for Adobe and any companies in this space. That's my major. Actually, one example is Galileo is a generative AI competitor to Figma. They were just purchased by Google about a month and a half ago, renamed Stitch and made available completely for free. If you're taking a look at a $75 seat license for FIGMA, you now have an option just to use Google Stitch for free. If I come from a start-up background, and if I raised $5 million at a $20 million valuation, I have the option, should I hire a FIGMA expert for 140 or $150,000 a year or should I just hire AI bots in the form of Stitch, Galileo, and some other versions of AI versions of a Figma and save myself a huge amount of money. I think currently, large corporations are the ones that are stuck on Figma. However as a good example is the Parsons School of Design in New York City are actively now beginning to teach generative AI design. The new designers that are coming out, the younger designers that are entering the workforce, the first tools that they're going toward are generative AI tools. They do not go to Figma. They do not go to Photoshop, even at this point. That's my main thesis, where I'm not too bullish on it. Jon Quast: Jonathan, I think a lot of investors would be reading over the S1 when it comes to Figma and looking at that 46% year over year revenue growth. I think there's a sense that the generative AI trend is already mature. How do we take what you've just shared about the business and maybe some of the risks. But then also how do we counterbalance that with the 46% revenue growth that we see? Jonathan Wilder: Generative AI really started in 2018, 2019 with the transformer architecture. That was first released for the public with Chat GPT in late 2022. However, the generative AI scope of what it's covering it first started to attack coding, the models are continuously being evolved. It then started doing things with the Chat GPT of image generation, runway with video generation, and this area of rapid prototyping is something that is not necessarily a focus of generative AI because if you use something like a cursor or a wind surf you can actually bypass Figma completely because as you're building a design using one of those tools or a bolt is you can ask with very specific prompts to build the design. It will also build the code at the background and will also deploy the code and the design live to a hosting environment. You're talking about Google earlier, Google's doing a very good job of integrating all of these types of tools, and that's why they purchased Stitch, where once you create a design on Stitch, which you would have done previously in FIGMA, now it's already creating the code. With one click, it's in Google Colab, which is their development environment and another click, it's in Google Cloud. FIGMA does not have any of that type of functionality built in. The pace of how that's going to evolve is, I would say, exponential over the next year. Most of what Figma has put on in terms of generative AI, I see mostly as band aids, marketing hype. It's unclear what they'll do over the next year. They can turn it around and put really useful generative AI tools within their interface which hasn't changed a huge amount, really in the past decade. Those [MUSIC] are my major concerns. Matt Frankel: Thanks Jonathan, for that clarity on Figma. It will be really interesting to watch once that one goes public next week. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool Editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisers are sponsored content provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For Jon Quast, Jonathan Wilder, and Tom Gardner, and the entire Motley Fool Money team, I'm Matt Frankel. We'll see you tomorrow. Jon Quast has positions in Starbucks. Jonathan Wilder has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Matt Frankel has positions in Figma, General Motors, and Starbucks. Tom Gardner has positions in Chipotle Mexican Grill and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Alphabet, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Costco Wholesale, International Business Machines, ServiceNow, Starbucks, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends General Motors and Stitch Fix and recommends the following options: short September 2025 $60 calls on Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 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