KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 4): Shares of Golf retailer MST Golf Bhd, which debuted on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia two weeks ago, saw heavy selling pressure on Friday (Aug 4), closing at an all-time low of 59.5 sen, down 17 sen or 22.2%. 

The counter was among the top losers on the local bourse amid active trade, with 44.48 million shares changing hands throughout the day, more than four times its 200-day average of 9.91 million shares. 

Compared to the listing price of 81 sen on July 20, the stock has lost 26.5% of its value. At 59.5 sen, it is currently valued at RM488.42 million.  

In fact, MST Golf made a lukewarm debut, ending three sen or 3.7% lower. Since then, the stock has been on a downtrend.   

MST Golf executive director and group chief executive officer Ng Yap had attributed the lacklustre debut to the current weak market sentiment.

“The whole reason for this IPO was to raise enough funds to speed up our expansion. To us, we are just focusing on our fundamentals. We have put ourselves in a position to grow our company to the next phase. Obviously, we hope for better (share price performance), but it is fine,” he had said.

Prior to the listing, the majority of brokerage firms had been positive on MST Golf’s initial public offering, suggesting investors to subscribe to its shares amid a premium valuation of 27 times price-earnings ratio (PER) based on its earnings per share of three sen in the financial year ended Dec 31, 2022 (FY2022).

In an interview with The Edge recently, Ng had said the valuation for MST Golf is justified, given the group’s strong brand within the golf community. 

Nonetheless, with the share price drop, it is now trading at around 20 times PER.

Financially, MST Global posted a net profit of RM8.79 million for 1QFY2023 on a revenue of RM86.29 million.