KUALA LUMPUR (May 22): Shares of Ann Joo Resources Bhd (Ann Joo) rose 2.20% this morning after Kenanga IB Research maintained its “Outperform” rating on Ann Joo Resources Bhd with a higher target price of RM3.75 (from RM3.03) and said it estimates Ann Joo’s 1Q17 core net profit (CNP) earnings to likely come in above our expectation at a range of RM68 million-RM80 million (based on capacity utilisation of 80%-90%) making up circa 36%-43% of our FY17E CNP due to higher-than-expected rebar prices and lower costs.

At 9.12am, Ann Joo rose 7 sen to RM3.25 with 165,000 shares done.

In a note today, the research house said it believes that Ann Joo  is the most cost efficient upstream steel miller in Malaysia given their superior margins against peers which is set to benefit the most from the reduced Chinese imports post safeguards.

“While we are maintaining our numbers (pending on the upcoming results release), we have raised our target price to RM3.75 after rolled forward our targeted PER to FY18,” it said.