KUALA LUMPUR (May 7): Based on corporate announcements and news flow today, stocks in focus for Wednesday (May 8) may include the following: KLCC Property Holdings Bhd, KLCC Real Estate Investment Trust, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, Nova MSC Bhd, Vortex Consolidated Bhd, Petra Energy Bhd, EG Industries Bhd, Hartalega Holdings Bhd, Lafarge Malaysia Bhd and TH Heavy Engineering Bhd.

KLCCP Stapled Group, comprising KLCC Property Holdings Bhd and KLCC Real Estate Investment Trust (KLCC REIT), reported today a 1.82% rise in first quarter net profit to RM183.96 million from RM180.67 million a year earlier, on higher revenue and profit before tax (PBT) from office and retail property investments.

KLCC Property and KLCC REIT said higher revenue and PBT from facilities management services also supported group net profit growth. Total group revenue was higher at RM353.45 million in the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 versus RM345.11 million previously.

The group declared total dividends of 8.8 sen a share comprising KLCC REIT's taxable income distribution of 6.28 sen and KLCC Property's tax-exempt dividend of 2.52 sen.

Tongurai Limpiti, the former deputy governor of Bank of Thailand, has joined the board of CIMB Group Holdings Bhd as an independent and non-executive director.

The veteran banker served as a deputy governor for financial institution stability group under Bank of Thailand from 2014 until 2016.

Tongurai, 63, completed her bachelor's degree in Accountancy in Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. Subsequently, she obtained an MBA from the University of Wisconsin Madison in the United States.

Nova MSC Bhd has appointed Lai Teik Kin to replace Chan Wing Kong as group chief executive officer, effective May 28.

Nova MSC said the appointment is in line with the group's succession planning. Chan, 62, will remain as the adviser for the group.

Lai, 55, is a co-founder of Nova MSC, and has served as both executive director and chief executive officer for the group's wholly-owned subsidiary novaHEALTH Pte Ltd as he spearheaded the group's foray into the healthcare industry.

Vortex Consolidated Bhd said both its rights issue of shares with warrants and rights issue of irredeemable convertible preference shares (ICPS) to raise RM54.89 million have been oversubscribed.

Vortex said its 1-for-5 rights issue of 60.989 million new shares was 122.18% subscribed. The rights shares — at an issue price of 15 sen apiece — come with one free warrant each.

Meanwhile, its 3-for-1 rights issue of 914.83 million ICPS were 110.67% subscribed. The ICPS has an issue price of five sen each.

Petra Energy Bhd achieved a net profit of RM1.72 million for its first quarter ended March 31, up 68.3% from RM1.02 million a year ago.

Quarterly revenue jumped 65.7% to RM111.85 million from RM67.51 million in the previous corresponding quarter.

The group partly attributed its year on year revenue growth to higher activities in its services segment, particularly those in the Hook up, Commissioning and Top-side Major Maintenance (HuC/TMM) contract with Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd.

EG Industries Bhd said its subsidiary SMT Technologies Sdn Bhd will form a joint venture with Taiwan-based Quanta Storage Inc to undertake manufacturing works for Western Digital.

The manufacturing works will be extended for other customers in Malaysia and Thailand as well. EG Industries said it will be injecting a capital contribution of RM1.96 million into the JV called TM SMT Sdn Bhd.

Hartalega Holdings Bhd’s net profit for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2019 fell 22% year-on-year to RM91.36 million from RM116.65 million, despite higher revenue, no thanks to increased costs and a sharply stronger ringgit during the quarter.

Revenue came in 11% higher at RM683.89 million versus RM616.84 million a year ago.

The board declared a third interim dividend of 1.9 sen per share, which will be payable on June 27.

Full year net profit climbed 4% y-o-y to RM456.2 million against RM438.92 million as revenue rose 18% to RM2.83 billion from RM2.41 billion.  

Lafarge Malaysia Bhd has resumed supplying cement to all eight packages of work for the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project.

The supply of cement is under the RM270 million contract that Lafarge had secured from China Communications Construction (ECRL) Sdn Bhd for the construction of the rail link project, which was suspended last year after the change of Government and  was revived on April 12.  

Lafarge said it had received a letter from China Communications Construction (ECRL) yesterday to cease the suspension of supply of cement to them with immediate effect.

The letter was issued after Lafarge’s client China Communications Construction (ECRL) received instruction from Malaysia Rail Link Sdn Bhd on April 15 on lifting the suspension of the cement supply contract.

TH Heavy Engineering Bhd (THHE) announced that its unit Floatech (L) Ltd had received a writ of summons filed by Drydocks World - Dubai LLC on April 23, demanding Floatech to pay the sum of US$6.22 million (approximately RM25.82 million).

THHE said the writ of summons was presented to the Dubai Courts of First Instance by Drydocks World to demand Floatech to pay the sum of US$6.22 million for the wharfage charges, maintenance, repairs and installation equipment carried out by Drydocks World on the Layang floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel.

In addition, it said that Drydocks World also claimed a legal interest of 12% per annum from due date until the date of full settlement with expeditious execution without bail and all fees, charges and attorney fees.