KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 18): Shares in UEM Sunrise Bhd rose as much as 13.5 sen or 18.49% in active trade on Monday, pushing the counter to a four-year high of 86.5 sen.
At 5pm, the counter closed at 84.5 sen, still up 11.5 sen or 15.75%. It was the second most active counter on Bursa Malaysia, with 148.88 million shares traded, more than two times its 60-day trading volume of 55 million shares.
The counter has risen more than 231% this year, on sentiment play amid an inflow of positive news for projects in Johor, in particular near the Iskandar region, where UEM Sunrise’s portfolio is mostly located.
RHB Research, in a thematic note on Johor, described that UEM Sunrise “is the best proxy for Iskandar property market recovery, given that 92% of its land bank is located in Johor”.
It added that UEM Sunrise’s 2,461 acres (995.93 hectares) of land in Gerbang Nusajaya is expected to benefit from the upcoming High Speed Rail (HSR) “as the proposed Iskandar Puteri station [under the previous plan] will be located there”.
“We believe that the RTS (Johor-Singapore Rapid Transit System) and HSR projects will be key catalysts for the Iskandar property market to grow, and the connectivity and convenience at the CIQ (customs, immigration and quarantine complex) will be major factors driving the long-term growth,” RHB Research said.
“Other developers with land bank further away from the second link will likely have more visible growth in the longer run, as the HSR project's works progress and more foreign and local investments flow into Johor,” it added.
UEM Sunrise’s net profit for the second quarter ended June 30, 2023 (2QFY2023) edged up by 19.31% to RM24.70 million, compared with RM20.7 million reported a year ago, on lower expenses and higher joint-venture returns. It was the group’s best quarterly performance since 2019.
Quarterly revenue, on the other hand, declined slightly by 0.29% to RM363.96 million, from RM365 million registered a year earlier.