KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 26): Here is a brief recap of some corporate announcements that made news on Wednesday (Oct 26), involving Affin Bank Bhd, Nestlé (Malaysia) Bhd, CapitaLand Malaysia Trust (CLMT), CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, KIP Real Estate Investment Trust (KIP REIT), AirAsia X Bhd (AAX), Capital A Bhd, Kerjaya Prospek Group Bhd, Jiankun International Bhd, Caely Holdings Bhd and EG Industries Bhd.
Affin Bank Bhd has announced the appointment of Datuk Syed Mashafuddin Syed Badarudin as the new chief executive officer of Affin Islamic Bank, effective Nov 8. This confirms The Edge weekly's report for the week of Oct 3-9, citing industry sources, that Syed Mashafuddin, who is said to have recently resigned as CEO of Principal Islamic Asset Management Sdn Bhd, will join the group to helm Affin Islamic.
Higher commodity prices, unfavourable exchange rates and the one-off prosperity tax hewed into Nestlé (Malaysia) Bhd’s net profit for the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2022 (3QFY22), slashing it down 23.9% to RM112.65 million, from RM148.02 million a year ago. Nevertheless, the group declared an interim dividend of 70 sen per share, with Nov 17 as the ex-date, and payment on Dec 15. The weaker earnings came despite Nestlé posting a 17% rise in quarterly revenue to RM1.68 billion from RM1.44 billion, on the back of higher domestic and export sales, as well as continued recovery of its out-of-home (OOH) channels.
CapitaLand Malaysia Trust (CLMT)’s net property income (NPI) for 3QFY22 swelled two-fold to RM38.21 million from RM18.57 million a year prior, in line with higher revenues across all of its properties. It said distributable income for the quarter amounted to RM22.2 million or a distribution per unit of 1.01 sen, while revenue rose 45.87% to RM71 million compared with RM48.68 million, on the back of continued improvement in retail sentiment and the absence of rental relief. For 9MFY22, CLMT logged a cumulative NPI of RM111.71 million, a 59.78% increase from the RM69.91 million the REIT achieved in 9MFY21.
CIMB Group Holdings Bhd’s 92.5%-owned PT CIMB Niaga Tbk’s announced that its unaudited consolidated profit before tax for 9MFY22 rose 22.5% y-o-y to 5.02 trillion rupiah (RM1.52 billion), from 4.1 trillion rupiah. This translated into higher earnings per share of 154.13 rupiah, from 126.38 rupiah. The solid results in 9MFY22 were due to improved revenues coming from strong business growth, excellent cost control and better underlying asset quality trends.
KIP Real Estate Investment Trust (KIP REIT)’s NPI for the first quarter ended Sept 30, 2022 (1QFY23) grew 4.8% to RM14.33 million, up from RM13.67 million a year ago, mainly due to low base effect, as operations were affected by Covid-19 lockdowns last year. Revenue was 13% higher at RM19.35 million for the quarter under review, compared with RM17.14 million for 1QFY22. KIP proposed a first income distribution of 1.45 sen per unit, with ex-date on Nov 9.
AirAsia X Bhd (AAX), the medium haul, low-cost affiliate of Capital A Bhd, said it is in the midst of formulating a comprehensive proposed plan to regularise its Practice Note 17 condition. This follows the lapse of an extension of time granted by Bursa Securities on Wednesday for AAX to complete the implementation of its corporate exercises announced in May last year, which entail raising up to RM116 million via a one-for-one rights offering and a special issue to raise RM50 million. Under its latest proposed regularisation plan, AAX said it had on Oct 12, via AmInvestment Bank Bhd, submitted an application to Bursa Securities for an extension of time of six months up to April 28, 2023, for the airline to submit the plan to the Securities Commission Malaysia or Bursa Securities.
Passengers carried by Capital A Bhd’s operating joint ventures across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand rose 36% to 9.9 million in the third quarter of this year (3Q2022), from the previous quarter, which was 54% of pre-pandemic levels in 2019. On a year-on-year (year-on-year) basis, total passenger traffic growth was higher at 2,189%.
Kerjaya Prospek Group Bhd said a consortium comprising its unit and Samsung C&T Corp has bagged a contract from Texas Instruments Electronics Malaysia Sdn Bhd to build a factory in Melaka for RM1.45 billion. Kerjaya Prospek said the 30:70 joint venture between its unit Kerjaya Prospek (M) Sdn Bhd (KPM) and Samsung C&T (KL) Sdn Bhd had received a letter of award to build and complete TIEM2 bump/probe/AT factory construction at Taman Perindustrian Batu Berendam, Free Trade Zone, Melaka.
Real estate developer Jiankun International Bhd via its wholly-owned subsidiary Nagamas Bizworks Sdn Bhd has entered into a joint development agreement with NTL International Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, a freehold land owner in Semenyih, to develop a serviced apartment with a gross development value of RM215.1 million — more than three times Jiankun’s current market value of RM70 million.
Caely Holdings Bhd proposes to change its name to “Classita Holdings Bhd" to create a new corporate identity for the company’s existing and future undertakings. Caely, which is embroiled in a legal case for alleged misappropriation of funds amounting to RM30.55 million, said the proposal is subject to approval of the company’s shareholders at the upcoming annual general meeting, which will be convened on a date to be announced later.
EG Industries Bhd secured a letter of intent (LOI) with US-based Cambridge Industries Group (CIG) to produce advanced high speed optical signal transmitter and receiver for 5G wireless network (optical modules). According to the group, the intention of the LOI is for CIG to transfer its 5G photonics modular technology to EG Industries’ wholly-owned subsidiary SMT Technologies Sdn Bhd, which will mark its first-ever pioneer technology transfer to Southeast Asia.