This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on September 13, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Iris Corp Bhd, which returned to the black in the first financial quarter ended June 30, 2018 (1QFY19) after three consecutive quarters of losses, is refocusing its business on the home front where it sees more potentials for growth.

“When we took over the company [last year], we lost all our contracts in Malaysia,” its president and group managing director Datuk Paul Poh Yang Hong told reporters after its extraordinary general meeting yesterday.

Currently, most of Iris’ contracts are from overseas.

In July last year, Poh and Datuk Rozabil@Rozamujib Abdul Rahman, via their private investment vehicle Caprice Development Sdn Bhd, emerged as a substantial shareholders in Iris with nearly 10% stake.

This follows a private placement as well as acquisition of shares through the open market.

“We are long-term investors and we do see potentials in this company. It’s looking good,” said Poh, on the outlook for Iris in the current financial year ending March 31, 2019 (FY19).

“Malaysia is where we’re looking at right now, it’s a big market. For us, now, we have a small exposure here although we had the biggest market share previously,” he added.

Poh, noting the company will be focusing on its core business — trusted identification (ID) solutions — said the company has divested its non-core assets in the last two financial years.

According to its Annual Report 2018, Iris is divesting the loss-making education division.

Currently, its order book stood at RM2 billion for the ID business.

For the first financial quarter ended June 30, 2018 (1QFY19), Iris reported a 66.6% increase in net profit to RM8.68 million, from RM5.21 million a year ago despite revenue falling 25% to RM75.81 million from RM101.05 million in 1QFY18.