Business

Thursday November 5, 2009

Investors continue buying into Lityan

By FINTAN NG


PETALING JAYA: Investor interest in Lityan Holdings Bhd, which recently emerged from Practice Note 17 status as a listed subsidiary of Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH), has been intense on speculation of the company’s earnings potential resulting from a tie-up with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd as well as other Middle East project tenders.

Lityan group managing director and chief executive officer Nor Badli Mohd Alias said the share price volatility was likely due to the relatively lower public shareholding spread of the company with LTH having a 56% stake in the company.

“There’s a lot of interest in the company but people are not selling. Coupled with the low public shareholding spread, there’s bound to be a rise in the share price,” he told StarBiz.

On Tuesday, Lityan’s share price volatility earned the company an unusual market activity query from Bursa Malaysia.

The stock tumbled 9.3% to RM2.45 on the same day before trading in its shares was halted less than 30 minutes before the market closed.

Last Friday, the company’s shares surged 25.17% to close at RM1.74 from an opening price of RM1.39. From Oct 30 to Nov 4, the average trading volume was 13.68 million shares or 21.67% of the total share capital of 63.1 million shares.

Nor Badli had said last Friday that the company was in a tie-up with Huawei for Telekom Malaysia Bhd’s (TM) high-speed broadband (HSBB) project as well as tendering for projects in the Middle East.

Although TM group chief executive officer Datuk Zam Isa did not identify Huawei as one of the partners in the project in an earlier report, industry sources said the Shenzhen-based company was one of the technology partners in the RM11.3bil HSBB project.

Nor Badli said the company was in a tie-up with Huawei to tender for three packages in the HSBB project but declined to reveal details except that the company’s share of the packages would be based on its scope of works.

According to AmResearch Sdn Bhd, Lityan’s work in the project would involve fibre-to-the-home implementation and Internet protocol television infrastructure.

So far, only the package involving the roll-out of fibre optics for the last-mile to targeted high-density areas of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor has been announced.

“We don’t know when the results of the tender for the other packages will be announced. It’s been delayed six months,” Nor Badli said, adding that the tenders in the Middle East were done in conjunction with LTH.

“This will involve projects with a minimum total value of US$1bil,” he said.


LITYAN : [Stock Watch] [News]

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