KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 24): BCM Alliance Bhd rose as much as 8.5 sen or 45% during its maiden trade on Bursa Malaysia's ACE market as investors eyed the company's profit growth and dividend.

The laundry and medical equipment distributor's shares rose to their highest at 27.5 sen from the stock's initial public offering (IPO) price of 19 sen.

At 10:40am, BCM pared gains at 23 sen. The most-active stock on Bursa Malaysia saw some 105 million shares traded.

BCM's net profit increased to RM2.59 million in the second quarter ended June 30, 2016 from RM1.96 million a year earlier. Revenue was higher at RM17.7 million versus RM17.02 million.

The company announced a dividend of 0.4 sen a share for the quarter. The ex-dividend and payment dates fall on this Nov 3 and 21 respectively.

Today, BCM managing director Liaw Chong Lin told reporters at the listing ceremony that laundry and medical device revenue contribution are expected to be about 50% each in the near term.

"Last year, you can see we had about 60% (of revenue) from laundry and 40% from medical, but this year we are quite on par," Liaw said. He said he expected to see a similar composition in 2017 and 2018.

BCM's IPO involved a public issue of 84.25 million new shares and an offer for sale of 42.13 million shares at 19 sen each.

At 19 sen, BCM has a market value of RM80.04 million based on the company's expanded issued base of 421.25 million shares.