Hot Stock Notion VTec falls 3% after 3Q results, downgrades

by **Cals** Sat 16 Aug 2014, 00:36

Hot Stock Notion VTec falls 3% after 3Q results, downgrades

Business & Markets 2014

Written by Yen Ne Foo of theedgemalaysia.com

Friday, 15 August 2014 15:45

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 15): Notion VTec Bhd fell two sen or 3% after the hard-disk drive manufacturer reported a 97% decline in third quarter net profit from a year earlier. The weaker results, which came in below market forecast, has invited analyst downgrades for the company.

At 3.25pm, Notion VTec changed hands at 65.5 sen with some 1.1 million shares traded. The stock had earlier fallen to a low of 65 sen.

Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd made an ‘underperform’ call for Notion VTec shares with an unchanged target price of 58 sen.

Kenanga, however, slashed its net profit forecast for Notion VTec for current financial year ending September 30, 2014 (FY14) to a net loss of RM4 million. This compares to an earlier estimated profit of RM14.7 million.

Kenanga has cut its income forecast on lower gross profit margin assumption of 5.3% for Notion VTec. This compares to a gross profit margin of 19% previously.

According to Kenanga, Notion VTec's 3QFY14 core profit of RM1.3 million came in below forecast.

Kenanga said that the core profit was “significant lower” than the research firm's FY14 forecast and consensus estimates of RM14.7 million and RM14.2 million respectively.

"The negative deviation was due to the weaker operational efficiency as well as greater losses at its associate level. As expected, no dividend was declared under the quarter reviewed," Kenanga said.