KUALA LUMPUR (April 23): Interest in shares of Nexgram Holdings Bhd surged following the company’s announcement yesterday about its venture to sell medical ventilators in East Jakarta and certain other parts of Southeast Asia.

The counter rose 33% earlier this morning and was traded unchanged at 1.5 sen at 10.50am.

Trading volume in the stock also spiked to 74.45 million, compared with its 200-day moving average volume of 2.61 million.

On Bursa Malaysia, it is currently the second most actively traded counter.

In a filing yesterday, Nexgram noted that its wholly-owned subsidiary Nexgram Industries Sdn Bhd (NISB) has signed a distribution agreement with PT Rafa Topaz Utama to distribute the ventilators, where the price and quantity of the products will be sold based on the purchase order as required by the latter.

The company said the agreement will be for an initial period of one year and will be automatically renewed for an additional one year, unless either party terminates the agreement.

Nexgram has also inked a deal with Tri-G Technologies Sdn Bhd to distribute Covid-19 medical supplies, including machines, reagents, test kits and coronavirus test kits in Malaysia for a period of two years.

However, it said the distributorship is subject to Tri-G obtaining the necessary approvals from the Institute for Medical Research (IMR), Ministry of Health Malaysia for those medical devices concerned.

For the first half of the financial year ending July 31, 2020 (1HFY20), Nexgram’s net loss widened to RM1.57 million from RM712,000 in the previous year.

In the same period, its top line shrank 21.42% to RM20.94 million, from RM26.65 million.

Meanwhile, in the most recent quarter (2Q), it has posted a net loss of RM1.63 million compared with a net profit of RM252,000 in the previous year, while revenue dropped 40% to RM8.93 million from RM15 million.

The company explained that the increase in losses were mainly attributed to the decrease in revenue from its logistics division and lacklustre performance from its subsidiaries involved in dealing with security and video surveillance equipment.

The company said its legal fees have also increased, which contributed to higher losses in the most recent quarter.