KUALA LUMPUR (March 10): Selling pressure on NationGate Holdings Bhd (KL:NATGATE) intensified on Monday, pulling its share price to a 17-month low, despite the company’s denial of any involvement in an ongoing fraud case in Singapore related to the alleged movement of Nvidia chips.  

NationGate’s share price plunged 19 sen or 14.3% to close at RM1.14 on Monday, its lowest point since October 2023. Trading volume reached 88.16 million — more than double the 39.8 million shares that changed hands last Friday. It is the second-most actively traded stock on Bursa Malaysia.

At RM1.14, the company was valued at RM2.60 billion, having lost about RM1.62 billion in market capitalisation since the start of its downfall last Monday.

Six analysts are covering NationGate, according to Bloomberg. None has downgraded the stock after the news of the fraud case in Singapore that has triggered the recent selldown.

Five analysts have 'buy' calls while only one has a 'hold' call on the counter. The consensus 12-month target price of the stock is RM2.66.

Bursa suspended the intraday short selling (IDSS) for NationGate for the rest of the day, following a decline of more than 15% or 15 sen in its share price from its previous close. The exchange said short selling under IDSS will only be activated at 8.30am the next day (Tuesday, March 11).

Listed in 2022, NationGate is an electronic manufacturing services provider focusing on the assembly and testing of electronic components and products to produce completed printed circuit boards, semi-finished sub-assemblies and fully assembled electronic products, and semiconductor devices, including for Nvidia chips.

However, its co-founder and managing director Datuk Ooi Eng Leong told The Edge last Monday that the court case in Singapore is associated with a company that is an Nvidia Cloud Partner and has nothing to do with NationGate.

Three men were charged in Singapore with fraud over the illegal movement of Nvidia chips to China, bypassing US export controls.

Nvidia’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips are subject to US export restrictions, and US authorities are investigating whether Chinese AI company DeepSeek had circumvented sanctions through third parties in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

Last Thursday, Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said in Parliament that there are no findings or reports indicating that Nvidia AI chips in servers were transferred to Malaysia from Singapore as claimed.

This was following an investigation undertaken by relevant agencies, including the Royal Malaysian Police, Royal Malaysian Customs Department, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, and parties from the US.

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