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Frontken invest RM25mil in a new plant at KHTP |
Thursday, July 13, 2006 |
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Frontken shines in Mesdaq debut
BY SABRY TAHIR
KUALA LUMPUR:Frontken Corp Bhd (FCB) made a commendable debut on the Mesdaq market yesterday, opening at 24.5 sen for a 3.5 sen premium above its reference price of 21 sen and closing at 29 sen for a gain of 8 sen, or 38%.
The counter, which was the day's most active stock, traded between a low of 24.5 sen and a high of 30.5 sen on volume of 74 million shares.
FCB Group executive chairman and managing director Willie Wong said he was satisfied with the opening price and attributed the share's performance to strong investor confidence in the company's fundamentals.
“With the strong response from investors, we feel very encouraged and determined to expand the company further and take it to greater heights,” he said after the listing ceremony yesterday.
Frontken is a leading service provider of mission critical surface metamorphosis engineering, utilising numerous thermal spray coating methods to various industries, including the semiconductor, power generation, petrochemical, and oil and gas industries.
Wong said Frontken's immediate plan post-listing would be to invest RM25mil in a new plant at Kulim Technology Park in Kedah to beef up output to meet increasing demand for its services.
The plant and machinery would be financed by bank borrowings, internal funds and partly from the company's listing proceeds, he said.
Scheduled to start operations by the end of the third quarter, the plant will produce 2,000 sets of mechanical components a month and help offset the problem of overcapacity at its Bukit Mertajam plant, which produces 500 sets a month.
“The Kulim plant's output will be equivalent to that of our plant in Singapore,” he said.
Wong said the Singapore plant accounted for 78% of Frontken's revenue for the year ended Dec 31, 2005 but the group was currently focusing on making Malaysia the regional hub for its activities.
The group has four plants locally, including that in Shah Alam and Kuching and another four regionally – two in Singapore, and one each in Thailand and the Philippines.
Given the stronger demand for its services, Frontken, which achieved a pre-tax profit of RM10mil on turnover of RM63.8mil last year, is confident of achieving its forecast of RM13.4mil pre-tax profit on RM78mil revenue in the current year.
The group plans to introduce new services such as nickel coating processing and anodising for semiconductor and vacuum plasma sprays over the next three years to tap on a larger segment of the industrial sector.
Source: The Star |
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