Hai-O Enterprise To Expand MLM Business To Indonesia

SHAH ALAM, June 30 (Bernama) Hai-O Enterprise Bhd, which sells Chinese herbs and medicine, plans to expand its multilevel marketing (MLM) business to Indonesia by year end.Financial controller Hew Von Kin said today the company has already identified a few local partners and is evaluating options to enter MLM business scene there."We have already identified a few local partners and are negotiating with them. We will review some options and subsequently set up a MLM company in Indonesia by the end of this year," he told a press conference here.Earlier, Hew presented a RM1.025 million cheque to Tabung Haji Travel & Services Sdn Bhd, which has been engaged to manage the Umrah package for Hai-O agents. The package is among the company's incentives for its sales team.Hai-O, 95 percent of whose distributors are Malays, has the potential to penetrate Indonesia market easily as the country shares its language and culture with Malaysia, he said.Three of its main products - Body Beautiful, Bio Aura and traditional Chinese medicine - are likely to be the top sellers there."As 95 percent of our sales team are Malay, these three products have been the selling point for the Malay segment here. We expect these products to have the same effect in Indonesia," he added.Currently, the three products contribute about 70 percent to the company's total revenue, Hew said.For the financial year ended April 30, 2007, the company registered a pre-tax profit of RM15.126 million on the back of revenue of RM146.798 million.Hew said the company is expecting double digit growth in revenue and pre-tax profit for the financial year ending April 30, 2008, to be driven significantly by its MLM business.Hai-O, now on the Second Board of Bursa Malaysia, has applied to the Securities Commission to transfer its listing to the Main Board, and Hew expects this to happen in October.

Malaysia's Balance Of Payments Improves In Q1 2007

KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's overall balance of payments during the first quarter of 2007 improved to RM15.5 billion from -RM2.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006.The current account continuously remained positive albeit at lower surplus of RM20.1 billion from RM27.9 billion posted in the previous quarter, the Statistics Department said in a statement Friday.The financial account switched to a modest net inflow of RM2.8 billion from net outflow of RM20.0 billion previously, resulting in smaller errors and omissions of -RM7.4 billion from -RM10.5 billion in the previous quarter, it added.Meanwhile, the international reserves held by Bank Negara Malaysia during the period increased to RM15.5 billion from a decrease of RM2.7 billion posted a quarter ago.According to the department, the overall balance surged by RM10.2 billion to RM15.5 billion from RM5.3 billion recorded in the same period last year.On a yearly basis, the surplus in current account declined marginally to RM20.1 billion from RM20.4 billion while the financial account recorded a net inflow of RM2.8 billion from an outflow of RM5.1 billion.The external reserves of Bank Negara which amounted to RM15.5 billion rose substantially when compared with a modest increase of RM5.3 billion posted a year ago, the department said.The surplus in the current account of RM20.1 billion, which declined by 28 percent in the previous quarter, was mainly due to lower surplus on goods amounting to RM27.6 billion, down from RM36.8 billion in the earlier quarter.According to the department, this was mainly attributed to bigger drop on exports f.o.b (free on board) relative to imports f.o.b in the current quarter.On the other hand, the deficits on services, income and current transfers improved by RM0.8 billion to RM0.5 billion, RM0.5 billion to RM3.1 billion, and RM0.2 billion to RM3.8 billion respectively.The reduction on exports f.o.b by RM13.6 billion or 8.9 percent from RM152.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006 was mainly reflected in lower demands for palm oil and palm oil-based products, electrical and electronic products, and timber and timber-based products, the department said.At the same time, imports f.o.b which declined by 3.9 percent or RM4.5 billion from RM115.5 billion previously was mainly attributable to lower demand for machinery and transport equipment, and manufactured goods and articles.Year-on-year, the surplus on goods dropped by RM4.1 billion or 12.9 percent to RM27.6 billion in the first quarter of 2007 from RM31.7 billion in the same period last year, the department said.The drop was mainly due to higher increase on imports f.o.b relative to exports f.o.b, it added.

Petronas Registers A Record RM76.3 Billion Pre-tax Profit In FY07

KUALA LUMPUR, June 28 (Bernama) -- Higher crude oil prices lifted the pre-tax profit of Petronas to a record RM76.3 billion for the financial year (FY) ended March 31, 2007, up 9.9 per cent from RM69.4 billion registered in the same period of 2006.Its president Tan Sri Hassan Marican Thursday said the national oil corporation's revenue rose 10 per cent to RM184.1 billion during the period from RM167.4 billion previously.Speaking at a press conference here to announce the group's financial performance, he said net profit jumped to RM46.4 billion from RM43.1 billion, while total asset increased to RM294.6 billion from RM273.0 billion.Shareholders fund grew 16.3 per cent to RM170.9 billion from RM147.0 billion, said Hassan.He said the national oil corporation's manufacturing revenue grew to RM102.9 billion from RM97.6 billion in last financial year."Without manufacturing activities, group revenue would be reduced by one third annually."To a question, Hassan said the domestic manufacturing revenue of Petronas stood at 28.7 per cent of the manufacturing sector's contribution to Malaysia's gross domestic product (GDP).Non-manufacturing revenue jumped to RM184.1 billion from RM167.4 billion.International operation revenue grew 19.4 per cent to RM67.6 billion from RM96.6 billion."There were increasing revenue from international operation reflecting the group's success internationally," he said.As for the strengthening ringgit, Hassan said it had a negative impact on financial results as Petronas conduct its business in U.S. dollar.The exchange rate impact to the revenue totaled RM7.2 billion.-Hassan said the group's total capital expenditure (capex) in FY 2007 expanded to RM21.6 billion from RM18.7 billion, with bulk of the capex for domestic projects.He said the exploration and production sectors continued to incur the biggest capex.On another note, Hassan said Malaysia's total average production in terms of barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day for FY 2007 declined 2.7 percent to 1,611.4 billion boe from 1,656.1 billion boe.He said assuming the growth of petroleum product consumption grew at four percent annually, Malaysia will be a net importer by 2010.Malaysia's oil reserves during the period rose 1.4 percent to 20.18 billion boe as of Jan 1, 2007, compared with 19.91 billion boe as of Jan 1, 2006.International reserves amounted to 6.31 billion boe as against 5.94 billion boe previously.As for the discovery of new crude oil during FY 2007, Hassan said 30 percent came from deepwater discovery.

Faber Group Unit Sets Up JV Company In India

KUALA LUMPUR, June 26 (Bernama) -- Faber Group Bhd's unit Faber Facilities Sdn Bhd (FFSB) together with India-based Apollo Sindoori Hotels Ltd (ASHL) plans to set up a joint venture company in Chennai, India which will be involved in healthcare and non-healthcare support services.A statement from Faber said the support services will be in the areas of bio-medical engineering maintenance, facility engineering maintenance, cleansing, housekeeping, janitorial services and hospital support services and management of information services.FFSB will hold 51 percent in the joint venture while the remaining 49 percent interest will be held by ASHL.Under an agreement to set-up the new company, ASHL will transfer its existing business of housekeeping services to hospitals valued at a deferred consideration RM7.23 million to the joint venture company.ASHL said it will also ensure that the hospitals it is providing the services to signs contracts with the new company.The entry by FFSB into the joint venture agreement is expected to expand FFSB's current business operations into international boundaries.The synergistic venture augurs well with FFSB's plan to be a comprehensive provider of facility management services by providing related support services and looking beyond Malaysia for the group's long-term growth, it said.

TNB-LedConsortium Gets Approval For IPP Project In Sabah

KUALA LUMPUR, June 25 (Bernama) -- Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) has won government approval for the proposed 300-megawatt coal-fired independent power producer project at Lahad Datu in Sabah.In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, TNB said the project will be carried out by a consortium where its wholly-owned unit, TNB Repair and Maintenance Sdn Bhd, has a 51 percent stake.The other consortium members are Eden-Nova (35 percent stake) and Maser (14 percent).The consortium's interest in the project is 80 percent, with the remaining held by Yayasan Sabah.The details with regard to the project will be discussed among the consortium members and will be announced in due course, it said.

YTL Cement target price to RM7.00

Better days ahead: In conjunction with the recent proposal to implement theAutomated Pricing Mechanism (APM) to regulate steel prices in the future, anannouncement was made on Bloomberg that the APM will be introduced to determinecement prices from CY08 onwards, and that the existing blended ceiling price ofM$220/t will be scrapped.APM = intervention method: We believe the implementation of the APM, coupledwith the removal of the price ceiling, will not result in a short-term "spike"in cement prices. If anything, all it means is that cement prices will becomemore dynamic, will be revised regularly, and there will be only one universalspot pricein the market. This is fundamentally different from the existing dynamicswhereby cement prices are determined by supply-demand economics, albeit with aprice ceiling.We raise our price forecast: Nevertheless, we are factoring in a rise in spotprices by an average of M$10/t in FY08 and M$5/t in FY09 and FY10, primarilyfueled by strong momentum in the sector as demand picks up.We raise our PT by 18.6% to M$7.00: We reiterate our Overweight rating on YTLCement and introduce a June-08 PT of M$7.00, computed based on EV of M$171/tratio. Based on our revised assumptions, we are pegging a higher EV of US$171/tto YTL Cement to primarily reflect the margin expansion from higher sellingprice. We also increase our earnings estimates for FY08 and FY09 by 13% and 11%to M$0.45 and M$0.60, respectively. We highlight both excess capacity and aprice war as key risks to our price target.

Malaysia's First NPLs Auction Nets Maybank RM256 Million

KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 (Bernama) -- In a first of its kind for Malaysia, Maybank Bhd has used an open auction to sell non-performing loans (NPLs) for RM424.8 million and make a gain of RM256 million.Its deputy president and chief financial officer, Datuk Mohammed Hussein, in announcing this Thursday, said the improvement in its net NPL ratio will be reflected in the results for its financial year which ends this month.The two tranches of long outstanding corporate NPLs were bought by two special purpose vehicles - Gale Force Sdn Bhd, which is part of the Standard Bank of South Africa Group; and Popular Ambience Sdn Bhd, which is jointly owned by Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd and Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Bhd."We believe that this (open bidding) process has resulted in optimum value creation for the bank as well as its stakeholders, by obtaining predictable outcomes for uncertain assets," Mohammed said in a statement."It also enables our staff, particularly in remedial management and loan recovery, to focus on more income generating activities."The auction, he said, drew 26 potential investors."Maybank believes that what it has done will also benefit the entire banking industry, since in the process of completing the sale, it has whetted the appetite of international investors to NPL sales and cleared any regulatory and legal hurdles to pave the way for other NPL sales to follow," he added.