KUALA LUMPUR (July 10): Shares in Vestland Bhd (KL:VLB) rose to a new record high since the construction company's listing 18 months ago, following a RM195.35 million contract win.
Vestland rose as much as 7.8% or 3.5 sen to an intraday high of 48.5 sen on Wednesday. The stock closed at 46.5 sen — still up 1.5 sen or 3.33% — valuing the company at RM439.1 million on Bursa Malaysia, after some eight million shares changed hands.
At 46.5 sen, the stock has a 16.03 times trailing price-earnings ratio, based on earnings per share of 2.9 sen, while the return on equity is 17 times.
The stock is trading at 2.74 times its book value of 17 sen.
In a recent note, AmInvest, which has a "buy" call and a target price of 62 sen for the stock, cited Vestland as a beneficiary of strong demand for high-rise residential buildings, with a solid RM2 billion order book.
"[Vestland is an] astute practitioner of value engineering, [with] a superior gross profit margin of over 14%, and a sustainable 23% earnings compound annual growth rate," the research house added.