Saturday, August 14, 2010

Mieco shares at 3-year high

KUALA LUMPUR: Shares of MIECO CHIPBOARD BHD [] rallied to a three-year high in intra-day trade on Friday, Aug 13 as the stock attracted heavy trading on news that BANDAR RAYA DEVELOPMENTS BHD [] (BRDB) confirmed it was in talks with a Chinese party for a potential collaboration with Mieco.

Mieco, which is 56.76% owned by BDRB, rose to an intra-day high of 96 sen, the highest since August 2007.

At 2.37pm, it was up 14 sen to 93 sen with 21.97 million shares done.

BRDB said earlier this week the collaboration could possibly involve equity participation in Mieco. The property developer said the discussion was preliminary and exploratory in nature at this stage.

According to Mieco's first quarterly earnings ended March 31, 2010, net profit was RM1.43 million verus a net loss of RM20.12 million a year ago. The better performance was due to better margins, lower operational costs and foreign exchange gains.

Group revenue fell 5% to RM42.44 million'' from RM44.7 million a year ago due to lower sales volume of particleboard, despite higher sales of value-added products.

However, the company had also said there was a 36% decline in pre-tax profit from the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2009 due to lower sales and production volume against the preceding quarter's results.

Investors should note Mieco's trade receivables were RM30.07 million as at March 31, 2010, while retained earnings were'' RM102.51 million. Borrowings were RM139.16 million and trade payables at RM21.83 million. Its net asset per share was RM1.52.


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