Scientex shares dip 7% on 1Q net profit fall

KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 31): Scientex Bhd saw its share price fall as much as 7.3% or 67 sen to RM8.48 this morning, after the company said its latest quarterly net profit dropped by more than one-fourth.

At 10.44am, the stock was traded at RM8.77 — still 38 sen or 4.2% down — making it the second largest decliner on the local bourse thus far today.

Scientex, now valued at RM4.31 billion, saw a total of 469,200 shares done at the time of writing.

Last Friday, Scientex announced a 25.9% year-on-year decline in its net profit for the first financial quarter ended Oct 31, 2018 (1QFY19), from RM72.4 million to RM53.67 million, on lower revenue from the group's property business.

Quarterly revenue, however, was up 9% to RM713.64 million from RM655.01 million in 1QFY18, due to strong manufacturing business, contributed by the newly acquired subsidiary Klang Hock Plastic Industries Sdn Bhd and the recent commencement of Scientex's new stretch film operation in Phoenix, Arizona in the US.

Kenanga Research said Scientex's 1QFY19 core earnings of RM52.7 million came in broadly within the research house's (17%) and consensus (15%) estimates.

The research firm maintained its "market perform" call on the stock with an unchanged target price of RM8.50.

"[We] maintain our FY19-20E core net profit of RM309 million to RM349 million as we expect property recognitions to pick up in coming quarters. We are expecting launches of RM800 million to RM850 million in FY19-20E, and manufacturing sector utilisation rates of 65% to 70% in FY19-20," it wrote in a note this morning. — theedgemarkets.com

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