Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (May 23): Pelikan International Corp Bhd, which supplies paper, office and stationery under the Pelikan, herlitz, Geha and Susycard brands, said it is currently in negotiations with prospective strategic buyers to dispose of "substantially" all its assets and business interest.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia on Tuesday (May 23), Pelikan said the company is appointing an investment bank as the principal adviser to advise the board of directors on the said disposal and negotiate terms of the transaction.

"The company will make the appropriate announcement(s) to Bursa in accordance with the Main Market listing requirements once the negotiations are finalised and definitive agreements are signed," it added.

On April 11, in response to an article titled “Pelikan said to be on the verge of major asset sale” that appeared in the April 10 issue of The Edge Malaysia, Pelikan had stated that it "constantly explores and evaluates opportunities to maximise shareholders’ value including evaluation of mergers and acquisitions, divestment of assets and businesses".

It conceded then that the company had received several expressions of interest related to the acquisition of its assets and businesses.

In a separate filing, Pelikan announced that it had returned to the black in the first quarter ended March 31, 2023 (1QFY2023), posting a net profit of RM4.65 million, compared with a net loss of RM6.12 million a year earlier. As a result, it recorded earnings per share of 0.77 sen for 1QFY2023 compared with a loss per share of 1.01 sen for 1QFY2022.

Revenue for the quarter also rose 18.1% to RM236.66 million from RM200.37 million a year earlier.

It attributed the better performance to strong sales development in the Latin American region, which recorded an increase in revenue of over 75% year-on-year. "Since 2022 after the pandemic, this region has been significantly strong and has even surpassed pre-Covid sales levels," Pelikan said.

Going forward, Pelikan said the business performance in key regions such as Latin Americas is expected to continue its significant growth.

"While the European region is still faced with high inflation and the Russia-Ukraine conflict still exists after more than a year, the business is still showing a high resilience against a weak economic growth in the European region as Pelikan’s core strength is on school stationeries and spending on education is still a necessity among parents.

"In addition, high end fine-writing instruments are more of a global product and a bigger part is sold within the Asian market which is now coming back to normalcy post-Covid, in particular China, Japan and South Korea," it noted.

Pelikan’s shares closed up 2 sen or 2.58% at 79.5 sen on Tuesday, giving it a market capitalisation of RM483.47 million.

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