KUALA LUMPUR: Shares in GHL Systems Bhd closed at an all-time high yesterday as investors took a favourable view of its partnership with Alipay, which was announced on Monday, to provide Alipay payment acceptance services to in-store and online merchants in Malaysia.
Alipay is one of the largest mobile and online payment platforms globally, with over 400 million users. It is owned by Ant Financial Services, part of Alibaba Group.
Year to date, GHL’s share price has risen 64% from 90 sen on Dec 30, 2016. The counter closed 34 sen or 29.82% higher at RM1.48 yesterday, with 48.83 million shares done. Its market capitalisation stood at RM968.16 million.
GHL has been trading in a 52-week range of between 78 sen and RM1.48.
An analyst who declined to be named said however, the stock’s rally sparked by the excitement surrounding the Alipay partnership is likely to be short-lived.
“The share price of a company is usually driven by its earnings. GHL’s share price rose 30% [yesterday], and it is unlikely that its earnings would go up by 30% overnight, so there is still work to be done,” he told The Edge Financial Daily over the phone yesterday.
Besides the Alipay collaboration, GHL announced last Friday that global investment firm Actis Stark (Mauritius) Ltd had acquired a 44% stake in the payment service provider.
The announcement followed a filing that its substantial shareholder Creador — a private-equity fund — had sold its entire equity interest of 28.3% in the company at RM1 per share, along with majority shareholder Simon Loh who sold almost half of his shareholding at the same price.
The share sale announcements saw GHL’s share price dip nine sen or 7.56% to close at RM1.10 last Friday.
According to a report by The Edge Financial Daily on Monday, GHL chief executive officer Danny Leong was quoted as saying that he understood Loh’s decision to reduce his stake to make way for new shareholder Actis.
“As for Simon, I understand that he was approached because the new shareholder, Actis, wanted a larger position in GHL and after evaluating, Simon saw Actis as a strategic partner that could help GHL reach greater heights. And note that he remains the second-largest shareholder with a substantial stake of 19%,” Leong added.
As at yesterday, Actis held a direct 44.37% stake in GHL.