Published on by Nayar

First Time Attending Company Annual Meeting: SBM Holdings Ltd.

I started investing in the stock market since May 2021. I had bought few shares of SBM Holdings Ltd (SBMH.N0000). And I was therefore sent the Annual Report and an invitation to attend the Annual Meeting. BTW, SBM stands for State Bank of Mauritius.

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the meetings were separated into multiple rooms so I could get to see the board members live.

Basically the meeting starts by the board members saying all is good. Then QA session where board members are asked questions about scandals, mismanagement of funds. The board will answer these:

  • We are only a holding company so we cannot answer what the operating company are doing
  • We cannot divulge loans given to certain customers as these are private
  • We take note, we will relay the information to the children company board members.

So basically what I understood is that the actual banking company is shielded from any scrutiny as I have shares only in the holding company and thus will not get invited in the children annual meeting if they do happen.

Everyone got 2 bags of food: 1 food pack for breakfast and 1 food pack at the end for lunch. Yay!

Tastes OK but I would have preferred Dividend payments. The goodies bag cost more than the amount of dividends I would have got but still 😛

Next hopefully will attend the meeting for SWAN GENERAL LTD. Wonder how similar it would be to this one.

Published on by Nayar

Mid Journey

You decide to carpool with your friend who has a car from Curepipe to Portlouis to go fetch a treasure. The journey would take Rs 200 fuel so she tells you to pay half of that. The treasure will be split.

But midway, your friend says that she will stop at Reduit instead. No problem you say. You give her Rs 100 and you continue your journey via bus. But she locks the door instantly.

She tells you to give Rs 50,000 instead for the journey because she bought her car with lots of money and it took her 2 years to get the license. WTF? How will you get Rs 50k and Rs 30 more to continue your journey?

Published on by Nayar

Getting my Johnson & Johnson Jennsen Vaccine in Mauritius

I trust science. But you can never over-trust. Politics, money is involved. Authorities can never be trusted. But still I decided to get J&J since it’s a 1 dose vaccine only. I’ll have to handle the pain only once.

I went to the Trou-aux-Cerf gymnasium at 14:00. I left there at 14:45. Very quick.

I felt arm pain for 2 days. Felt very tired for 3 days. Had to take a day off from work to rest (which didn’t actually happen since clients called me and I had to fix things urgently).

Published on by Nayar

My Monitor Review: LG 29WL500 UltraWide FHD

In order to develop awesome product and services for my company LEFINTECH LTD, I need the best possible tools to do so. But the company  is a new startup in Mauritius, we have limited budget so we had to find best compromises in terms of features and price. The LG 29WL500 seems to be the perfect match for me.

Why did I choose ultra-wide instead of 2 monitors?

1. Small footprint on the desk

I live in a very small studio with no place to put a dedicated work desk, I needed something compact. A single 29 inch ultra wide display is perfect. It allows 2 applications to open side by side while still being usable. Website would not go into tablet mode as they do with 16:9 aspect ratios.

2. Price

I paid Rs 11,990 for the screen in shop at Fast Click Bagatelle. 2 x 24″ screens would have costed me around Rs 12,000 – Rs 16,000 (Rs 6000-8000 each). But since I get the benefits of 2 screens in 1 at the same price, it was obvious for me to go with it. But further I saw some discrepancies on Fast Click’s website. At 1 place, it is listed as this:

And in the price-list, we can see that it is Rs 11,590. Was the price increased at some point in time?

3. Spreadsheets are much more manageable.

Working in a startup doesn’t limit your role to development. You have to do lots of things which are outside your comfort zone. Doing financial forecasts/analysis is one of the things i found myself doing very often.

The amount of columns you can display is greater. If you work a lot in Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets or Libre Office, I would strongly suggest to switch to an ultra wide.

Cons

  1. Doesn’t has USB-C connectivity so you cannot charge your laptop and send display signal with the same cable #richpeopleproblems
  2. The screen is 6bit + FRC instead of a real 8bit or even 10bit. Linux doesn’t support HDR or 10bit so not much an issue. Anyways for a work related environment, it really shouldn’t matter
  3. No height adjust: This is a big one. I had to put plywoods underneath the screen in order for it to reach the right height for me.
  4. The resolution is only 1080p. Texts don’t look that crisp. at 1440p, this screen would be perfect. But I think for the price, 1080p is still good.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a screen for work, just go ahead and buy this one. You will not regret it 😉

 

Published on by Nayar

Why are Laptops so expensive in Mauritius

I can’t understand why are Windows 13″- 14″ laptops so expensive in Mauritius.

 

The performance of the M1 is simply unmatched in the laptop sphere. How come they charging so much for older windows laptops? Sell them without the Windows licence and give a Rs 5000 – 6000 discount. Anyways, you’re looking for a new laptop around that price range, I’d recommend to go for the Apple M1 if you need performance.

If you have reasons to buy the non-Apple laptops, please feel free to share them with us.