KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 1): Shares of GPA Holdings Bhd rose as much as 21.43% or 4.5 sen today, continuing the uptrend last month on buying fuelled by the possible emergence of a new shareholder in the battery manufacturer.
The counter pared some gains at the time of writing, but was still up 4 sen or 19.5 sen with 237.45 million shares traded — 20 times its 200-day average volume of 11.07 million shares. It was the sixth most actively traded counter on Bursa Malaysia.
GPA was among Bursa’s top performers in August on the back of a penny stock rush, rising from 11.5 sen at end-July to its 13-year high of 26 sen last Wednesday — representing a gain of 126% — before paring gains.
The recent renewed interest was also on news that Datuk Eddie Ong Choo Meng, who recently took control of Rubberex Corp (M) Bhd, has emerged as a front-runner to take over GPA.
Quoting sources, The Edge Malaysia weekly reported on Aug 29 that Ong is going head-to-head against data centre operator Regal Orion Sdn Bhd to take control over GPA.
GPA shares had been trading below 10 sen through the years, ever since a spike in 2007.
The company, which has been listed since 2000, turned loss-making in the financial year ended March 31, 2012 (FY12).
It has since been unable to reverse the trend, and recorded eight loss-making years between FY12 and FY20.
Apart from the possible shareholder change, GPA’s fundamentals had changed little.
At the end of its latest quarter ended June 30, 2020 (1QFY21), GPA had net assets of 11 sen per share. The company booked a quarterly net profit of RM69,000, down 61.67% from RM180,000 in 1QFY20, despite revenue rising 28.86% to RM7.6 million from RM5.91 million.
Edited by S Kanagaraju
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/gpa-21-possible-emergence-new-shareholder
