Magna Prima, Wing Tai, SapuraCrest, Kencana

KUALA LUMPUR: Key regional Asian markets are expected to remain jittery in the week ahead, starting Monday, Aug 8, in the absence of any clear indicators about the US economy and Europe’s deepening crisis.

Overnight on Wall Street, stocks closed out their worst week in more than two years on Friday, Aug 5 in a volatile session. For the week, the Dow fell 5.8%, the S&P 500 was down 7.2% and the Nasdaq was off 8.1%.

At Bursa Malaysia, there could be some bargain hunting for battered stocks which still had strong underlying fundamentals. But the buying could be restrained.

On Friday, the FBM KLCI closed down 1.45% or 22.46 points to 1,524.43 while week-on-week, the index lost 24.38 points.

A total of RM26.89 billion was wiped out from the Bursa Malaysia market capitalisation where 21 stocks hit fresh 52-week lows. Market capitalisattion was reduced to RM1.312 trillion last Friday.

For among the 30 components of the FBM KLCI, six of them hit a fresh 52-week low. They were IOI Corp Bhd, YTL Power International and YTL Corp Bhd, MISC Bhd, Tenaga Nasional Bhd RM5.94 and PPB Group Bhd.There could be mild bargain hunting for some of these stocks which possess strong fundamentals.

Positive corporate news which could help lift sentiment are Magna Prima Bhd, Wing Tai Malaysia Bhd, SapuraCrest Petroleum Bhd, Kencana Petroleum Bhd and Scomi Engineering Bhd.

Magna Prima is making its foray into Australia to undertake a mixed residential and commercial project in Melbourne with an indicative gross development cost of A$148 million (RM482.18 million). The company expects to record a profit of A$62 million (RM200.32 million) from the project.

Wing Tai Malaysia expects to record a gain of RM27.63 million from the sale of two pieces of land in Seberang Perai, Penang to Aeon Co. Bhd for RM50.12 million cash consideration.

It said the two pieces of land, about 7.29 ha and 4,625 sq metres, were currently vacant and Aeon planned to build a shopping complex with car park facilities

The Edge weekly reports the River of Life project has seen two significant developments over the last two weeks, leading to renewed interest in it as well as Datuk Lim Kang Hoo's Ekovest Bhd.

It also reported that Flonic Hi-Tec is banking on critical cleaning business. The company will now provide its customers with critical cleaning systems capable of filtering particles that are up to 10 microns in size, compared with 100 microns in precision cleaning systems.

The boards of SapuraCrest Petroleum Bhd and Kencana Petroleum Bhd have agreed to their merger to become one of the world’s largest oil and gas service providers in terms of market capitalisation and assets.

They had accepted Integral Key Sdn Bhd’s (IKSB) RM11.85-billion offer to acquire all their assets and liabilities in a share swap. The offer shall remain open for acceptance until 5pm on Aug 15.

Fraser & Neave’s net profit for the third quarter ended June 30, 2011 rose 11.2% to RM77.85 million from RM70 million a year earlier due to strong contribution from its property and soft drinks divisions.

Its revenue for the quarter dipped to RM882.47 million from RM892.77 million due mainly to lower volume of dairy products sold in Malaysia.

It said under its soft drinks division, sales activities for Coca-Cola products will cease effective Oct 1, 2011 and, as such, the division’s revenue and profit thereafter will see an inevitable immediate reduction, it said.

Coca-Cola business makes up about 30% of the revenue of the soft drinks division for the current financial year, it said.