KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 12): Based on corporate announcements and news flow today, companies that may be in focus tomorrow (Wednesday, Jan 13) could include the following: MAHB, MCIL, Scanwolf, Esthetics, Nylex, Xin Hwa, Seacera, AirAsia X, Tropicana, Asdion and HeveaBoard.
Total passengers at Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd's (MAHB) local airports showed a 2.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) decrease in December 2015 to 8.06 million.
For the full year, its Malaysian airports' traffic growth inched up by 0.5% to 83.73 million, from 2014's 83.35 million.
In a filing to Bursa Malaysia today, the airport operator said the number was "better than expected", with the month's average load factor of 79.3% being the monthly highest in two years.
For 2016, MAHB expected the number of passengers handled by its Malaysian airports to grow by 2.5% from 2015's numbers, to 86 million. The operator said total aircraft would also grow by a similar quantum of 2.4%.
Media Chinese International Ltd (MCIL) said it is in preliminary discussions with a potential investor on the possible disposal of its entire 73% (292.7 million shares) stake in Hong Kong-listed One Media Group Ltd.
However, MCIL told the exchange, as at the date of this announcement, no deliberations have been made by the board and the parties have not agreed on any deal.
Scanwolf Corp Bhd has reinstated the executive powers of executive director Datuk Tan Sin Keat and financial controller Ng Chee Wai, following their suspension in June last year.
In a filing with exchange on Dec 23, 2015, the Ipoh-based home and kitchen fittings manufacturer had said that it found no evidence of wrongdoing, either criminal or civil culpability, by any individual, both within or outside the group.
Esthetics International Group Bhd (EIG)'s wholly-owned subsidiary EIG Haircare Sdn Bhd has been granted the exclusive rights to distribute Bio-Therapeutic (BT) professional skin care equipment in Hong Kong and Macau.
EIG told the bourse that this follows its June 16, 2014 announcement on the signing of an exclusive distributor agreement between Esthetics Concept Sdn Bhd (ECSB), which is now known as EIG Haircare, and Micro Current Technology, Inc/Bio-Therapeutic, Inc for the exclusive rights to distribute BT professional skin care equipment in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand, with a first right of refusal for Hong Kong, Indonesia and the Philippines.
All other terms of the agreement remain unchanged, including the term of the agreement which remains for a period of 10 years commencing July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2024 with the option to renew for a further period of 10 years.
A total of 12 million Nylex (Malaysia) Bhd's shares or a 6.24% stake crossed hands off-market at 55 sen apiece or RM6.6 million today. However, it isn't clear who the buyer and the seller were.
Nylex shares were traded flat at 57 sen and saw only 6,900 shares done.
Xin Hwa Holdings Bhd's wholly-owned unit Xin Hwa Trading & Transport Sdn Bhd has had its contract related to works for internal port operations of Port of Tanjung Pelepas Sdn Bhd (PTP) renewed yesterday.
Xin Hwa told Bursa that the contract is for the supply of prime mover and drivers for housekeeping and other ancillary yard movement services at the Tanjung Pelepas Port, and the value of the contract is dependent on the volume of services required by PTP, based on the agreed flat rate of RM9.20 per move.
The duration of the renewal is for one year, from Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2016, with an option for another year's renewal at PTP's sole discretion. Xin Hwa expects the renewed contract to contribute positively to its earnings and net assets per share for FY16.
Tiles manufacturer Seacera Group Bhd is diversifying into the medical devices business after signing a subscription cum shareholders agreement (SSA) with Proligen Sdn Bhd
to set up the country's first polysulfone dialyser manufacturing plant in Melaka.
The SSA involves a subscription of 520,000 shares of RM1 each, with the share premium of RM4.70 each in Proligen at a subscription price of RM2.96 million. Proligen will effectively be a 51% owned subsidiary of Seacera.
Seacera managing director (MD) Zulkarnin Ariffin said after the signing ceremony with Proligen that the plant in Melaka will produce two million pieces of dialyser annually, and is expected to generate a profit before tax of at least RM75 million within three years from the production commencement date.
AirAsia X Bhd plans to fly to Auckland, New Zealand, from Kuala Lumpur starting from this March 22 to expand the low-cost airline's network.
AirAsia X chief executive officer Benyamin Ismail said the airline would extend its existing Kuala Lumpur-Gold Coast, Australia, route to include Auckland, and strengthen AirAsia X's connectivity between Asia and the Australia-New Zealand region.
Tropicana Corp Bhd, which has been disposing of its assets to trim its gearing since 2014, is selling its Sky Express Hotel on Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, for RM55 million.
Tropicana told the exchange that, apart from paying its bank borrowings, the sale's net proceeds of about RM24.4 million shall also be used for working capital purposes. The expected gain from the disposal is approximately RM2.5 million.
Asdion Bhd said the three-month moratorium starting this Friday on bauxite mining activities in Pahang that was announced by the state and federal governments will not have any negative impact on its business operations.
Based on the sourcing and off-take agreement dated June 2, 2015 entered into between Asdion's wholly-owned subsidiary Venice Sanctuary Sdn Bhd (VSSB) and Hong Kong International Mining Exchange Ltd (HKIM), VSSB is contractually required to supply the commodity to the latter over a period of two years on a per written order basis with no form of monetary penalty if the supply fails to materialise.
Asdion also said that it obtained shareholders' approval to commence its sourcing and supply of commodities business via Asdion's extraordinary general meeting held on Nov 2, 2015. Unfortunately, the approval date overlapped with the commencement of the monsoon season as commonly occurs throughout Malaysia (in particular the East Coast of Malaysia).
This in turn affected the quality of bauxite commodity required by HKIM.
"Due to this, Asdion has not commenced the supply of bauxite commodity to HKIM as to date," it said.
HeveaBoard Bhd's MD Yoong Hau Chun said the allegations on the investor blog i3investor.com were non-fundamental and frivolous.
According to CIMB Investment Bank's research report issued today, Yoong had explained via a conference call that a civil suit, which had been filed against the company's MD over the non-payment of dividends, was indeed instituted by HeveaWood Industries Sdn Bhd's (HW) minority shareholders against the Yoong family for the non-payment of dividends at HW.
HW is HeveaBoard's largest shareholder with a 27% stake.
HW was not in a position to pay dividends from 2009 to 2012 as HeveaBoard's financials were stretched following the collapse in the particleboard industry, and the High Court had decided in favour of the defendant in the suit.
HeveaBoard's management also said the allegations that its containers held up by Korean customs due to non-conformance to quality standards was "untrue".
On the discrepancy in its inter-company loan, the management said HW had made other inter-company loans to other related parties in addition to HeveaBoard and hence, the amounts would differ. Furthermore, all of HeveaBoard's debts will be repaid by mid-2016, according to management.
(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)