By Yimie Yong / theedgemarkets.com | July 7, 2015 : 9:48 PM MYT
KUALA LUMPUR (July 7): Based on corporate announcements and news flow today, the companies that may be in focus tomorrow (Wednesday, July 8) could be the following: HB Global, AirAsia, Yinson, TMC Life Sciences, icapital.biz ( Financial Dashboard), Sunway, Aeon, Sime Darby, Hartalega and Bina Darulaman ( Financial Dashboard).
Frozen food specialist HB Global Ltd said in a reply to Bursa Malaysia this evening that it is still investigating the reason for its rise in share price and it is not aware of any unannounced corporate development or rumour on the rise of its share price.
However, the company said it is still waiting for the reply from the major shareholders on the above matters.
HB Global has received an unusual market activity (UMA) query from Bursa Malaysia earlier today, after its share price spiked in recent days. It closed 4.5 sen or 47.37% higher at 14 sen today, with some 5.7 million shares done.
Last week, HB Global shares rose from 4.5 sen on Monday, to close at six sen on Friday.
AirAsia Bhd confirms that its 49%-owned associate company, PT Indonesia AirAsia ( Financial Dashboard), has received a letter from Indonesia’s Ministry of Transport that requires it to ensure a positive equity position by July 31.
“As this is a matter which has only been made known to us, we together with Indonesia AirAsia are currently studying the letter closely as well as [seeking] a meeting with the Ministry of Transport,” said the low cost carrier in a filing to Bursa Malaysia.
AirAsia (fundamental: 0.2; valuation: 1.4) said the letter has no immediate effect on its Indonesian operations and the airline shall at all times continue to operate within the ambit of Indonesian laws.
The Jakarta Post reported last Friday that 13 airlines, including IAA, had been given until July 31 to restructure their balance sheets in order to have positive shareholders’ fund.
Failing to do so, their operating permits would be suspended by the Transportation Ministry.
Indonesia AirAsia’s balance sheet as at March 31 shows that the low cost carrier had a shareholders fund deficit of 3.03 trillion rupiah (RM866 million), mainly due to the accumulated losses of 3.21 trillion rupiah.
The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has raised its equity stake in Yinson Holdings Bhd ( Financial Dashboard) from 4.9% to 10.13%.
In a statement today, Yinson (valuation: 1.5; fundamental: 1.5) executive chairman Lim Han Weng said EPF bought 60 million shares at RM2.83 per share in the company’s private placement exercise.
Just four days ago, EPF sold 1.1 million shares or its 0.11% stake in Yinson, an integrated offshore production and support services provider, which reduced its stake of 5.01% to 50.65 million or 4.91%.
This occurred when Yinson announced on June 29 of the divestment of its logistics and trading business to Liannex Labuan Ltd for RM228 million to fully focus on the business of floating production storage and offloading (FSPO).
Last month, EPF had unloaded 8.64 million shares, or 0.84% stake in Yinson.
Johor crown prince Tunku Ismail Ibni Sultan Ibrahim has emerged as a substantial shareholder holding a 7.67% stake in TMC Life Sciences Bhd, in which Singaporean tycoon Peter controls a 70.5% stake.
A filing to Bursa Malaysia showed that Tunku Ismail was issued the 133 million TMC Life shares after he sold an indirect 30% stake in BB Waterfront Sdn Bhd.
TMC (fundamental: 1.45; valuation: 0.9) took over the entire stake in BB Waterfront, a wholly-owned unit of Best Blend Sdn Bhd, for RM400 million by issue of shares. The Johor royalty held a 30% stake and Lim owned the remaining 70% in Best Blend.
BB Waterfront owns Thomson Iskandar, a medical hub project located on 1.6ha in Stulang Laut.
The medical hub will contain a hospital named “Iskandariah Hospital”. Co-located with the hospital is an outpatient medical centre that will contain 400 clinic suites.
The medical hub will be managed by Thomson International, a subsidiary of Thomson Medical Pte Ltd — a private hospital owner and operator in Singapore.
City of London Investment Management Co Ltd has upped its stake in icapital.biz Bhd to 13.49% after acquiring 231,000 shares in the latter last week.
In a filing to Bursa Malaysia today, icapital.biz (fundamental: N/A; valuation: N/A) said City of London Investment owns a total of 18.89 million shares in icapital.biz after the purchase.
icapital.biz said City of London Investment bought the shares on the open market between last Wednesday (July 1) and Friday (July 3).
Sunway Bhd ( Financial Dashboard)'s construction arm Sunway Construction Group Bhd (SCG), which is en route to a listing on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia on July 28, has fixed the institutional and retail prices of its shares at RM1.20 apiece.
In a filing to Bursa Malaysia today, Sunway said (fundamental: 1.5; valuation: 1.8) the prices were fixed following the completion of the bookbuilding process under the institutional offering on Friday.
The retail offering closed at 5pm on July 6, 2015 (Monday).
Japan's Aeon Co Ltd is interested in buying the Malaysian operations of Britain's Tesco Plc, valued at about 900 million pounds ($1.4 billion), people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Buying Tesco's operations would make Aeon Malaysia's biggest hypermarkets group. The Japanese retailer has 28 hypermarkets in the country and plans to open 100 more stores in various formats by 2020. Aeon also owns 51.7% of Aeon Co M Bhd ( Financial Dashboard) (fundamental: 1.75; valuation: 0.5), which has 29 outlets and four MaxValu supermarkets in Malaysia.
Tesco is currently seeking buyers for its US$6 billion South Korean business and a stake in data-gathering arm Dunnhumby, to fund a turnaround in its core home market. Britain's biggest retailer is recovering from an accounting scandal and the loss of market share to discount chains Aldi and Lidl.
Aeon, has informally discussed its interest with corporate advisers, one person familiar with the matter said.
Tesco, which has not expressed any intention to sell its Malaysian business, declined to comment. A spokesman for Aeon said the company is not in negotiations with Tesco.
A spokesman for Sime Darby Bhd ( Financial Dashboard), which owns 30% of Tesco's Malaysian arm, said the Malaysian plantation-to-autos conglomerate will always evaluate opportunities that may enhance shareholder value.
Sime Darby's (fundamental: 0.8; valuation: 1.4) latest annual report showed Tesco operates 49 stores throughout Malaysia. Net profit rose 73% to RM82.2 million ($21.60 million) last year, on revenue that rose 1.1% to RM4.65 billion.
Nitrile glove maker Hartalega Holdings Bhd ( Financial Dashboard), which has seen its share price climbing over 23% from the start of the year, has proposed a bonus issue of 820.4 million new shares on the basis of one bonus share for every existing share held by shareholders on an entitlement date to be fixed later.
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, Hartalega said the bonus issue was to raise its issued and paid-up share capital of the company to reflect its current scale and that of its subsidiaries.
“It also allows greater participation in the equity of the company in terms of the number of Hartalega shares held whilst maintaining the equity interest. It would (also) improve trading liquidity of shares on Bursa Securities (Financial Dashboard),” it said.
It said the proposed bonus issue is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2015. Hartalega has appointed RHB Investment Bank as its adviser for the proposals.
Meanwhile, Bina Darulaman Bhd (BDB) expects its revenue to grow 10% for its financial year ending Dec 31, 2015 (FY15), mainly driven by its property development segment.
Its group managing director Datuk Izham Yusoff said that the group will pursue aggressive property development this year, with a focus on the affordable housing market in Kedah.
BDB (fundamental: 1.2; valuation: 2.6) plans to launch an affordable housing project in Langkawi, which will see the roll out of 500 apartment units in Kuah by the end of the year.
BDB also has three other projects in Langkawi, which includes the development of a 200-acre piece of hillside land and the development of another 13 acres of land in the mangrove area for ecotourism villas.
The group is also in talks with the Langkawi Municipal Council to jointly upgrade the Kuah jetty facilities and to construct a hotel and multi-storey car park nearby.
Izham said the four projects in Langkawi has a combined gross development value of RM1.5 billion, to be realised over five to seven years.