KUALA LUMPUR (June 19): Muar Ban Lee Group Bhd (MBL) has emerged as a new substantial shareholder of Federal International Holdings Bhd after the plantation firm bought a 5.1% stake.

MBL’s stake in Federal International exceeded 5% with the purchase of 247,800 shares on June 17, a filing with Bursa today showed.

This confirms theedemarkets.com’s earlier article entitled 'Muar Ban Lee wants a substantial stake in Federal International'.

It is learnt that MBL intends to hold more than a 20% stake in the furniture manufacturing-cum-construction company.

Federal International, which is formerly known as Federal Furniture Holdings (M) Bhd, is principally involved in four main business divisions, namely manufacturing, interior fitout, construction and trading.

In the article dated June 17, theedgemarkets.com reported it is not known what attracted MBL to want to hold a substantial stake in Federal International, whose earnings performance has not been that outstanding.

According to the company’s Annual Report 2019, Federal International was founded by Datuk Dr Choy Fook On, whose family members owned about 33.22% stake as at October last year.

Shares of Federal International have jumped six times from a recent low of 10 sen on March 30 to 60 sen today. It has a market capitalization of RM64.75 million.