What I did with my new found wealth (2009)

I was very STUPID to promised a growth of 10% every year for the next four years when we sold our company in early 2008. Any short fall will deducted from our payout held in an escrow account.  Having work real hard in 2008, I managed to grow our company (or rather their company) sales by more than 15% in both the top and bottom line. It was a great relief to me as my payout will be deducted if the company missed the targets. Having hit our targets, I received my first installment from the escrow account.

2009 is the year I started to subscribe to Business Times and I started to pay attention to what was happening in the global financial world. Engineer by training and entrepreneur by circumstances, I had totally no experience in financial investment. To overcome this weakness, I decided to engage the service of the private bank for my financial planning. With my new bank account, I suddenly become a 'accredited investor'. It is still a joke to me today as I still do not understand what it actually meant!

At the beginning of 2009, the STI saw its bottom in March but I was totally freaked out to buy any equity. To achieve my quest to grow my passive income to 20K/mth, corporate bonds seem to be the safest options. At that time, short term (1 to 5 yrs) corporate bonds from Keppel Land, Midpoint Properties and Capitalmall were yielding about 3% to 5%. Having little time to focus on my passive income portfolio, I practically dump all my 'new' fund into the short term corporate bonds.

 At the end of December 2009, my passive income grew from 11K/mth to 14K/mth.

Portfolio : 2009