Will the research conundrum ever be resolved?

EVERY day in the local stock market over the past two months the shares of Rowsley Holdings, the diversified real estate company controlled by well-known local businessman and billionaire Peter Lim, have been among the most actively traded.

This is only to be expected since it was announced in July that Mr Lim will be injecting 100 per cent of Thomson Medical Pte Ltd and 70.36 per cent of Bursa Malaysia-listed TMC Life Sciences into Rowsley, an estimated S$1.9 billion deal that saw Rowsley's shares almost double in value in the day immediately following the news.

Yet what is unexpected is to find that Rowsley is not covered by any broking firm. Based on the stock's high daily activity, the huge asset injection involving healthcare - one of the sectors very much in vogue at the moment - and the prominent name behind the deal, one would have thought analysts would be scrambling to issue research on Rowsley to advise their customers on possible fair values but this is not the case.