Thursday 28 Mar 2024
By
main news image

KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 5): Based on corporate announcements and news flow today, companies that might be in focus tomorrow (Wednesday, Jan 6) could include the following: VS Industry, LBS Bina, BHIC and Omesti.

VS Industry Bhd's shareholders today approved a 1.2 sen single-tier final dividend at its annual general meeting, in respect of the financial year ended July 31, 2015 (FY15).

The dividend is payable on Jan 29.

Together with earlier-paid interim dividends of 3.6 sen per share, total dividend payments in respect of FY15 amounted to 4.8 sen or RM53.9 million, representing 40.6% of the group's FY15 net profit.

In a statement today, the group's managing director Datuk Gan Sem Yam said VS Industry will continue to increase its research and development capabilities, as well as joint collaboration for new product innovations, to create more value for customers.

LBS Bina Group Bhd has set a sales target of RM1.2 billion for its financial year ending Dec 31, 2016 (FY16), which it expects will be driven by planned launches worth RM2.5 billion in gross development value (GDV) and its unbilled sales of RM993 million as at Dec 31, 2015.

At a press briefing today, LBS Bina managing director Tan Sri Lim Hock San announced that the company managed to meet its RM1 billion sales target for 2015, when it registered total sales of RM1.029 billion, a 60% improvement from RM644 million in the previous year.

"Last year, we set a target of RM1 billion for 2015. Other companies have downsized their sales target, but we have managed to achieve RM1.029 billion; 85% of the sales were contributed by our projects in Klang Valley, and the balance 15% by Johor and Penang," Lim said.

For 2016, the company will be launching a total of 15 projects with a total GDV of RM2.5 billion; the projects are located in the Klang Valley, Pahang and Batu Pahat, Johor.

Some of the notable launches for 2016 include the remaining five blocks of Bandar Sauajana Putra (BSP) 21 and its BSP Village shop offices in the same township, and Skyvilla and Nautilus 2 in D'Island Residence, Puchong. These launches have a combined GDV of approximately RM1.5 billion.

The company will also be launching Desiran Bayu (RM330 million GDV) in Puchong, Telok Gong Industrial Park (RM304.7 million GDV) in Klang, Taman Perindustrian Shah Alam Awana @ U10 (RM243.6 million GDV) in Shah Alam and Cameron Centrum (RM239 million GDV) in Pahang within the year.

Boustead Heavy Industries Corp Bhd (BHIC) today clarified that the disposal of its three Chulan chemical tankers was because the net operating returns from the continued chartering of the tankers were minimal and insufficient to cover financing and maintenance costs.

"This fact was reported in regular quarterly reports to Bursa Malaysia and in the relevant annual reports, and comments have been made consistently about the unsatisfactory financial returns from the chartering business," it said in a statement today in response to an article that appeared on The Edge Malaysia's 'Frankly Speaking' column, in its Jan 4–10 edition.

In the article, The Edge had urged BHIC to explain why it ventured into the tanker business four years ago in the first place, the difficulties it faced and why it decided to fold after BHIC announced on Dec 23 that it would be disposing of its three chemical tankers to Jasa Merin (Labuan) Plc for a combined US$17.1 million (RM73.47 million) or US$5.7 million (RM24.49 million) each, the proceeds of which it would use to reduce its existing loan and borrowings.

In its statement today, BHIC said in its previous news release that accompanied the announcement of the disposal of the tankers, it was made clear that the reason BHIC assumed the contract for the vessels in 2010 was to mitigate a situation where the original buyer had cancelled the contract to build the vessels prior to their completion.

Omesti Bhd has secured phase two of the e-COURTS Court Digitisation Programme for technology enhancements to the court infrastructure of Peninsular Malaysia, worth a total contract sum of RM31 million.

In its filing with Bursa Malaysia today, the group said the contract was awarded to its indirect 51%-owned subsidiary, Formis Network Services Sdn Bhd (FNS), and subject to a formal contract agreement to be entered into between the Malaysian government and FNS.

The contract is for a duration of 18 months and scheduled to commence on Jan 15, 2016 to July 14, 2017.

Through a press statement today, Omesti said the contract will bring about a significant step change in the level of court digitisation and the scope of capabilities offered by the platform.

(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.)

 

      Print
      Text Size
      Share