Hot Stock Kim Teck Cheong active, up on plan to buy food manufacturer

by **Cals** Wed 13 Jan 2016, 02:37

Hot Stock
Kim Teck Cheong active, up on plan to buy food manufacturer
By Surin Murugiah / theedgemarkets.com | January 12, 2016 : 9:55 AM MYT

KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 12): Shares Kim Teck Cheong Consolidated Bhd (KTC) rose in active trade early today after it entered into a memorandum of understanding to acquire the entire equity stake in Sarawak-based Popular Trading (Borneo) Corporation Sdn Bhd, a distributor, wholesale trader and food manufacturer.
At 9.36am, KTC rose 2.25% or sen to 45.5 sen with 13.64 million shares done.
KTC said in a bourse filing that Popular Trading's business covers Sarawak, Sabah and Labuan, and that the acquisition will enable it to establish KTC's presence in Sarawak.
In a separate statement, KTC said Popular Trading is a popular household name in Sarawak with 48 years of experience, and that its total estimated purchase consideration will be based on a due diligence process that will take into consideration Popular Trading's net asset value, excluding investment in subsidiary companies, as at Dec 31, 2015 and the company's audited net profit after tax for the last three financial years.
"In view of this acquisition, KTC's revenue shall double, [while its] operations will be strengthened and presence in the state of Sarawak will be unparalleled," KTC group executive director Dexter Lau said.
"This move will expand our trading business, network, and infrastructure and also increase our human resource by three times our present capacity in order to meet with the huge expansion plans we have targeted and planned," he added.
(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)