KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 18): TT Vision Holdings Bhd made an impressive debut on the ACE Market of Bursa Malaysia on Wednesday (Jan 18).

The machine vision equipment manufacturer closed at RM1.28 on its maiden trading day — a 276% jump over its initial public offer (IPO) price of 34 sen, making it the second best performing newly listed stock in the past three months after ECA Integrated Solution Bhd.  

The stock soared to an intra-day high of RM1.70 during the first 30 minutes and it managed to stay above RM1 for the trading day. TT Vision is the most actively traded stock on Bursa Malaysia with a trading volume of 155.85 million shares, which is equivalent to one third of its issued share capital of 468 million.

“For the past 21 years, the promoters and key senior management have been working relentlessly to grow TT Vision Holdings Bhd into what it is today,” said TT Vision chief executive director and executive director Goon Koon Yin.

“We aim to continue growing our company to greater heights and increase our market share in other prominent semiconductor, optoelectronics and solar cells markets such as the US, Germany, South Korea, China and Malaysia.

“The listing comes at an opportune time when we intend to capitalise on our listing status to sustain our growth momentum, going forward,” he said.

The group is involved in the development and manufacturing of machine vision equipment, along with the provision of related products and services, wherein the machine vision equipment is primarily used for the inspection of optoelectronics, solar cells, discrete components, integrated circuits, as well as in vision guided equipment.

Its business activities include equipment design, software development, and the manufacturing, assembly and installation of equipment and/or modules.

Goon is positive on the group’s prospects, noting that China’s reopening is crucial for TT Vision, while the photovoltaic (PV) growth in a few years will continue.

“The opening of China is surely a good thing for everybody, in particular for us because our [reliance] on China is pretty significant,” he said in the press conference after the listing ceremony.

“And China is growing. The most crucial part is that China is still growing despite all these headwinds. They are pumping money into semiconductors.

“Solar is a fantastic thing, especially when you hear about all these mega incentives in the US, in Europe and in India, and all of that would spur the PV growth, especially outside China.

“The PV growth in the next decade, probably a more balanced landscape... and that serves us very well because our customer portfolio, our customer base is global... and orders and regional growth in regions that I have mentioned just now (US, Europe,India) will be serving us well,” Goon said.

The IPO exercise entails a public issue of 84.5 million new shares to raise RM28.73 million and an offer for sale of 10.5 million existing shares to selected investors for RM3.57 million by way of private placement.

From the RM28.73 million proceeds expected to be raised from the public issue, the group allocated RM10.68 million or 37% for working capital and RM8 million (27.85%) for its research and development expenditure, plus RM6 million (20.88%) for repayment of bank borrowings.

KAF Investment Bank Bhd is the principal adviser, sponsor, sole underwriter and sole placement agent for this IPO exercise.