KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 18): Stocks on Bursa Malaysia could see some positive upside on Wednesday, as sentiment is underpinned by firmer close on regional markets after the favourable GDP data growth in China.
Reuters reported that the slightly better economic news from China and Germany countered concerns over Europe's debt crisis on Tuesday, lifting European shares and the single currency, but Greek default fears and a looming debt sale by Spain held gains in check.
The latest survey of German economic sentiment, conducted by the ZEW think tank, posted its biggest ever monthly rise in January, easing fears of a recession in Europe's largest economy.
Among the stocks to watch on Wednesday include TENAGA NASIONAL BHD [], PROTON HOLDINGS BHD [], BINA PURI HOLDINGS BHD [] and NEXTNATION COMMUNICATION BHD [].
Hard disk drive manufacturers could see trading interest again after Western Digital Corp expected its two factories in Thailand to return to pre-flood production levels by September after the planned resumption of operations at its Navanakorn plant in March.
Western Digital, hit hard by the floods, resumed production at its Bang Pa-in plant in central Ayutthaya on Nov. 30 and its objective is to bring back its capacity to rapidly support its customers.
Reuters quoted Western Digital president and CEO John Coyne said the impact of the floods had reduced its output by 30%.
Tenaga Nasional Bhd expects to return to black in the second quarter ending Feb 2012, boosted by the RM2 billion received from Petroliam Nasional Bhd and the government under the fuel cost-sharing mechanism.
It posted a net loss of RM224.70 million for the first quarter ended Nov 30, 2011 compared to net profit RM716.50 million a year earlier. The losses were due mainly to 29.5% increase in operating expenses due to continued use of oil and distillate as alternative fuel to generate electricity.
Meanwhile, a day after DRB-HICOM BHD [] emerged as the successful bidder for Khazanah Nasional Bhd’s 42.7% stake in Proton Holdings Bhd, DRB-Hicom was actively buying up the shares from the open market.
DRB-Hicom bought 39.927 million Proton shares or 7.27% stake via open market at prices ranging from RM5.40 to RM5.47 per share.
Bina Puri Holdings Bhd’s Pakistan subsidiary has inked a concession agreement with the National Highway Authority of that country to build a 136km-long motorway under a build-transfer-operate concept for a contract value of RM864 million .
It said on Tuesday that its subsidiary, Bina Puri Pakistan (Private) Ltd had signed the 28-year concession agreement for the conversion of the existing four-lane Karachi-Hyderabad superhighway into a six-lane motorway.
Bina Puri said the CONSTRUCTION [] cost amounted to RM644 million and that the construction, upgrading and rehabilitation of the motorway is to be completed over 30 months, adding that it expected the groundbreaking to be sometime in March 2012.
Nextnation Communication Bhd expects cumulative profit of about US$7 million over the initial period of three years from its IT infrastructure project with Indonesia’s PT Inovisi Infracom, Tbk.
IOI CORPORATION BHD []’s subsidiary Multi Wealth (Singapore) Pte Ltd has won the tender bid for a parcel of land in the island republic for S$408 million (RM995.50 million).
AXIS Real Estate Investment Trust (Axis REIT) has targeted to increase its total assets portfolio from RM1.28 billion at end-2011 to RM2 billion by 2013. In the immediate term, it expects its portfolio increase to about RM1.4 billion once it completes two property acquisitions at the end of this month.
Axis REIT has identified PROPERTIES [] worth RM545.3 million for possible acquisitions and is conducting due diligence on a number of them.
