KUALA LUMPUR (March 23): Structural steel specialist Eversendai Corp Bhd shares jumped earlier this month following four contract wins worth RM5.4 billion combined, which brought its outstanding order book to RM6.6 billion.

One of the contracts is the mind-boggling outdoor ski resort in Saudi Arabia dubbed Trojena, with 36km of ski slopes located up the mountains in the Tabuk province near the Red Sea, and bordering Jordan and Egypt.

Despite its strong execution track record, eyebrows were raised over the size of the contracts at hand, the degree of difficulty in bringing to reality the ski village, as well as the financial strength that will be required to execute such a project.

“I see Eversendai being able to showcase profits quarter by quarter. This will be a positive year and 2025 will be on another level altogether,” said Eversendai’s founder and largest shareholder Tan Sri AK Nathan.

In his latest interview with The Edge, Nathan, who is also Eversendai's executive chairman and group managing director, shared how the group plans to manage the risks associated with the projects at hand.

The self-made entrepreneur said that Eversendai is putting the house in order to capture the upside of its contracts, amid an extended recovery from its oil and gas (O&G) venture in the 2010s that was further expounded by the Covid-19 pandemic.

He also responded to questions about an earlier related party transaction, which saw Eversendai face financial strain due to a contract to build two oil O&G vessels for a company linked to Nathan. The group is closing its chapter on the O&G venture, even as the industry is seeing better days again.

Can Eversendai regain investor confidence with the staggering Trojena project, in Nathan’s words, paving the way back to its glory days? Read the rest of the story in this week's issue of The Edge Malaysia weekly.

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