Faber says days of losses are over (1368)

KUALA LUMPUR: Faber Group Bhd
says it will not record anymore quarterly losses this financial year
ending Dec 31 (FY12) and expects profitable quarters ahead on the
backdrop of it also possibly securing a hospital support services (HSS)
concession deal by year-end.
The healthcare services provider
had sunk into the red in the third quarter last year due to its
projects in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which the company said all
of it had already been accounted for. This setback in the UAE had
caused the company to last year miss its headline key performance
indicators (KPIs) for revenue growth of between 12% and15% and a return
of equity (ROE) growth of 15%-18%.
In an exclusive interview with StarBiz,
the company's chief financial officer, Juliza Jalil, said the coming
year would be a profitable one and that “there will be no more
(quarterly) losses this year.”
Faber managing director Adnan Mohammad
said the company eyed returns for its shareholders based on a KPIs of
revenue growth of 10%-12% and an ROE growth of 15%-17% in FY12.
Adnan
said the company's future was bright premised on the possibility of
being able to secure a HSS concession deal with the Government based on
his estimates of what had been developing on this front since three
years ago.
“In 2009 we put in our letter and between 2009 and
2010 there were several workshops and technical service requirements
conducted between the concession companies and the Health Ministry.
This is because we need to bring the service level up to a certain
stage at the government side,” Adnan explained.
“When we hold
the workshop we said: what else can we improve? This is the forum (we
had) in that forum new things were brought in to see what else can be
improved through the dialogue between the ministry and us. This is
basically to see what else can be done to bring up the level of
service,” he added.
He said the company aimed to improve its
services to the government hospitals with higher standards such as
improved turnaround time, minimising downtime, and an increased of new
technology usage which will require additional capital investments.
“Some
of these equipment, it (the ministry) also wants less disruption so
that by the end of the day downtimes will be minimised. It is something
like a backup (similar to) the function of an uninterrupted power
supply. These are the things that we are discussing to decide on what
level and their cost implications,” Adnan said.
“There are going
to be cost implications, these new technologies will be needing new
equipment and what not so who is going to bear all these? These are
things that we have to look at and agree on which is going to take
sometime. As far as we are concerned, we want to close this and move
forward I think the Government also wants that (and) I am sure it knows
what else it is looking at,” he added.
The stock, which had been
trending downwards of late, is not of a concern to Adnan who said that
it was up to investors to judge the company based on its track record
before this. Faber is trading at attractive indicative gross dividend
yields of 5.88% after declining 4 sen at its close yesterday to RM1.35.