This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on November 5, 2015.

Progressive Impact Corporation Bhd (+ve)

SHARES of PICORP (Fundamental: 2.4/3.0, Valuation: 1.4/3.0) climbed 19.1% to close at 25 sen yesterday, with some 3.9 million shares changing hands. In comparison, its average 200-day volume was only 292,985 shares. 

The company provides environmental consultancy services (49.1% of revenue in 2014), laboratory testing services (42.4%) and waste management engineering (4.1%). Domestic operations accounted 73% of revenue in 2014, while Indonesia and Saudi Arabia contributed 15.1% and 11.9%, respectively. 

For 1H2015, sales fell 1.6% to RM40.6 million while net profit grew 77.5% y-y to RM4.9 million, attributed mainly to higher contribution from the laboratory testing segment, due to increased sales to Indonesia and implementation of cost reduction initiatives. 

PICORP is currently bidding for a 15-year environmental monitoring concession contract from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and expects the results by end-2015. It cites the availability of the PM2.5 measurement technology as its competitive advantage.