The Board of Directors ("the Board") of Wegmans wishes to inform that Wegmans Furniture Industries Sdn. Bhd. (“WFI”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wegmans, had on 16 and 20 February 2021 voluntarily underwent a COVID-19 full screening for all its employees, both foreign and local, covered all of three (3) premises and head/management office in Bukit Bakri, Muar, Johor as precautionary measure to contain and prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus amongst its employees and its surrounding community (“First screening”). The First screening result revealed all local and foreign employees were tested negative and free from COVID-19 infection.

On 23 February 2021, an employee of WFI reported being infected by COVID-19 after developing symptoms and conducting screening test. WFI had on 23 and 24 February 2021 voluntarily underwent a COVID-19 full screening for all its employees, both foreign and local, at all its factories located in the Bukit Bakri, Muar, Johor (“Second screening”). This Second screening exercise had revealed that some of WFI’s employees were tested COVID-19 positive. All COVID-19 positive employees are from the same premise. All employees in the affected premise are currently placed under quarantine and isolation.

WFI is cooperating and working closely with Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (“KKM”) to implement the mitigating steps to contain the spread of COVID-19 at that affected premise, and also safeguard the health of WFI’s employees who may have been exposed to the virus.

WFI had also taken an additional step to temporarily suspend the operations one (1) of the affected premise from 23 February 2021 to 7 March 2021 or to be further advised by KKM. The other two (2) unaffected premises’ production facilities at different locations are free from COVID-19 related incident and remain in full operations.

Impact on business operations

The temporary closure of one (1) of the affected premise’s operations is expected to result in delay for the shipment of several orders to WFI’s customers. The management of the Company is currently in discussion with the affected customers for the rescheduling of the delivery dates for these orders and expects that there will not be any adverse impact to the Group.

The management of the Company will mitigate the production disruption by divert some of its orders to another unaffected premise, which is located within the same district as the affected premise, to compensate for the loss in capacity. WFI expects to be able to mitigate the delay in shipment via increase production with overtime upon re-commencement of manufacturing activities.

Impact on financial performance

The Company does not expect any material impact to its financial performance other than the cost incurred for the swab test, disinfection process and daily meal allowance to workers.

Impact on earnings prospects

Barring any prolonged interruptions or closure of the affected premise’s operations of WFI, the Board does not expect any material adverse impact on the revenue or the earnings of the Group for the financial year ending 2021.

Strategy and steps taken to address the impact of COVID-19

The Company will continue to monitor the situation and work closely with the relevant authorities as to ensure resumption of the affected premise with the well-being of employees being safeguarded at all times.

This announcement is dated 26 February 2021.