This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on November 12, 2015.

KUALA LUMPUR: MISC Bhd clarified yesterday that the group is not in any discussions with Bumi Armada Bhd “on any potential transaction”.

The company said this via a filing with Bursa Malaysia in response to news reports last week and yesterday, the latest of which that said MISC may own 65% of Bumi Armada. MISC on Monday said it continuously explores and assesses opportunities and growth prospects, and that should such opportunities materialise and decisions are made to pursue them, it would make the necessary announcements to Bursa.

At the time, it was responding to reports that said MISC may sell its floating production storage and offloading business to Bumi Armada in exchange for Bumi Armada shares. MISC (fundamental: 2.3; valuation: 1.4) shares closed at RM9.16 yesterday, down six sen or 0.65%, valuing it at RM40.84 billion. Its share price has slipped 0.76% from RM9.23 last Friday since the news reports came out.

Bumi Armada (fundamental: 0.55; valuation: 1.2) shares, on the other hand, which were the second most actively traded stock yesterday, closed at RM1.05 — down six sen or 5.41% from last Friday’s close — after climbing as high as 4.5% to RM1.16 before midday yesterday. Its current price gives it a market capitalisation of RM6.5 billion. Its share price has climbed up about 5% from RM1 last Friday.

The Edge Research’s fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations. Go to www.theedgemarkets.com for more details on a company’s financial dashboard.