KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 27): Shares of Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Bhd (KL:AJI) jumped on Tuesday, and may be headed for their best day in 17 months, as the seasoning company reported a surge in quarterly profits.
Ajinomoto rose as much as RM1.02 or 7% to RM15.50, its highest since July 3, 2024. At 10.20am, the stock was trading at RM15.24, still up about 5%, on course for its largest gain in a single day since March 28, 2023. At the last price, the company had a market capitalisation of RM927 million.
The stock was also more active than usual. More than 220,000 shares changed hands so far, nearly triple the trading volume’s 200-day moving average.
No institutional analyst covers the stock.
Shares in Ajinomoto have surged this year and peaked on May 3, after the company declared a special dividend to distribute income from a land sale that helped to boost its net profit by more than 14 times in the financial year ended March 31, 2024 (FY2024).
The stock has declined since then, but is still up about 8% year-to-date. The April-June quarter is usually the weakest period for the company as its sales are affected by the number of festivities.
On Monday, Ajinomoto reported that net profit jumped 54.99% year-on-year to RM18.93 million for the first quarter ended June 30, 2024 (1QFY2025), while revenue rose 15.42% to RM171.44 million on better contributions across the consumer business and industrial business segments.
The company did not declare any dividends for the quarter under review. Ajinomoto just paid a special one-off dividend of RM2.12 per share on May 30 that amounted to RM128.89 million, and declared a final dividend of 38.40 sen per share for FY2024 totalling RM23.34 million to be paid on Sept 25.
Recent strengthening of the ringgit against the US dollar would help to cut its import bills, though the company flagged that the costs of raw materials to manufacture its products as well as packaging materials remain high.
In addition, the unresolved Red Sea crisis continues to impact on shipping schedules and shipping costs, Ajinomoto said in an exchange filing on Monday.