Westports founder Gnanalingam buys 210,000 shares

KUALA LUMPUR: Westports Holdings Bhd, whose share price put up a lacklustre performance since its Oct 18 listing on Bursa Malaysia, saw its founder and executive chairman Tan Sri G. Gnanalingam buying 210,000 shares.
A filing with Bursa Malaysia showed he purchased the shares or a 0.01% stake from the open market for RM533,400 or at an average price of RM2.54 on Nov 29. 
At RM2.54, this was four sen above its offer price of RM2.50.
This was the first time that a member of the board of the port operator had acquired shares from the open market since the listing of the ports operator.
Gnanalingam is also deemed interest in 1.445 billion shares or 42.39% via Pembinaan Redzai Sdn Bhd.
Westports had a market capitalisation of RM8.53bil upon listing and it was the largest public offering in Malaysia then for 2013.
On its first trading day, it closed at RM2.65 and rose to a high of RM2.69 the following Monday of Oct 21.
However, sentiment was dented several days later on news that its biggest customer, CMA-CGM, might reduce its calls at its transshipment hub. Since then, Westports has been trading between RM2.51 to RM2.57.
Earlier on Wednesday, Kenanga Investment Research initiated coverage of Westports with an Outperform call and target price of RM2.85 a share, which is an upside of 30 sen above its current price of RM2.55.

It said the concerns about the alliance (P3 alliance) reducing their calls at Westport were "overdone".

“We still expect to see growth in throughput in the range of high single digits to low teens moving forward for Westports.