KUALA LUMPUR (July 17): Based on corporate announcements and news flow today, companies that may be in focus tomorrow (July 18) may include the following: Advancecon Holdings Bhd, Hiap Teck Venture Bhd, Poh Huat Resources Holdings Bhd, Velesto Energy Bhd, Barakah Offshore Petroleum Bhd, JAKS Resources Bhd, Star Media Group Bhd, Utusan Melayu (Malaysia) Bhd, Kumpulan Perangsang Selangor Bhd, My EG Services Bhd, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd and Kumpulan Jetson Bhd.

The earthworks and civil engineering services specialist Advancecon Holdings Bhd has bagged its second earthworks contract worth RM20.51 million for the Eco Ardence mixed development in Setia Alam.

The contract, entailing earthworks and ancillary works for the second phase of the project, is for nine months from site possession in July.

Advancecon’s current orderbook stands at RM937 million, which provides earnings visibility until end-2020. Along with the latest contract, Advancecon’s new wins in the financial year to date amounts to RM390.6 million.

Hiap Teck Venture Bhd has announced its blast furnace at Eastern Steel Sdn Bhd has resumed production, after a halt of nearly three years.

Eastern Steel is principally involved in the manufacturing, selling, and dealing in a range of steel products using the blast furnace plant, with a current production capacity of 700,000 tonnes of steel slabs per annum.

Its products are targeted to be sold locally to satisfy domestic demand and also exported to neighbouring countries principally, Indonesia and Thailand, which are net importers of steel slabs.

Poh Huat Resources Holdings Bhd is buying a warehouse-cum-office showroom in Cranbourne West, Victoria, Australia for A$4.95 million from JSNJ Investment Pty Ltd of Australia, with the intention to hold the property as investment for rental to third parties.

The board views that the property has good potential in terms of capital appreciation and rental yield, given the demographic and commercial potential of the Cranbourne area.

The warehouse-cum-office showroom acquisition, which comprises a 2,912 sq m one-storey warehouse, with a 300 sq m office with retail/showroom facilities at the front of the property, will be funded internally.

Velesto Energy Bhd, formerly known as UMW Oil & Gas Corp Bhd, has announced that the Singapore International Arbitration Centre has awarded its subsidiary Velesto Drilling Sdn Bhd an early termination fee of US$19.2 million.

The arbitration case was against Frontier Oil Corp over a dispute related to the breach of a drilling contract in north-west Palawan in the Philippines, which was inked in September 2014.

The award included interest of US$698,127.78 spread across 249 days, legal costs (S$1.43 million), arbitration cost (US$341,115.80) and other costs (S$22,836.91 and US$178,883.82).

Barakah Offshore Petroleum Bhd has secured an extension to its contract with Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) which is due to expire in December 2018, to December 26, 2019.

The scope of the contract includes transportation and installation of facilities such as pipelines, structures and related equipment for offshore oil and gas fields for Petronas and Production Arrangement Contractors (PACs) within Malaysia.

The contract’s value would depend on the number of work orders issued by the clients during the course of the contract duration, based on mini bidding exercise among contractors.  

JAKS Resources Bhd secured an ad interim order at the High Court today to restrain two financial institutions from releasing its RM50 million bank guarantee to Star Media Group Bhd, until the Enrinford injunction is decided.

The RM50 million guarantee is in relation to an agreement between Star and Jaks for the latter to develop the 15-storey “Tower A” within the Pacific Star development in Section 13, Petaling Jaya by end-July.

The order granted today is effective until July 23, being the date when the inter-parties hearing of the application for the Erinford injunction is heard by the High Court, said Star, while JAKS said its lawyers have also withdrawn the application for stay of execution today.

Datuk Dr Ibrahim Yahaya, former Press secretary to former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, and three others – former banker Wan Zalizan Wan Jusoh, senior lawyer Datuk Mohd Azmi Othman and Datuk Ahmad Fauzi Zahari — are the four new board members of loss-making Utusan Melayu (Malaysia) Bhd.

Ibrahim, 58, has been appointed as independent and non-executive director of the group.

Their appointments come a month after the voluntary resignation of four directors — chairman Tan Sri Mohamad Fatmi Che Salleh, Datuk Seri Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad, Jamalul Kiram Mohd Zakaria and Mohd Yusof Abu Othman.

Diversified group Kumpulan Perangsang Selangor Bhd's (KPS) indirect wholly-owned subsidiary CPI (Penang) Sdn Bhd is buying a 4.5-acre piece of land in Bayan Lepas Industrial Park, Penang for RM27.7 million from Penang Development Corp, on which it intends to build a new electronic manufacturing services (EMS) factory.

Construction of the new factory is expected to commence in the first half of 2019, with target completion in 2020.

The new land, over three times bigger than the 1.4-acre land that currently houses the existing EMS facility, is located some 500m from CPI's engineering thermoplastics (ETP) manufacturing division and 2.5km from the existing EMS facility.

My EG Services Bhd (MyEG), which emerged as the top active counter on Bursa Malaysia today, clarified that it is still "in the midst of negotiation with potential business partners" for its business expansion plans.

The expansion covers the initiation of a remittance service and MyEG's maiden venture into Bangladesh, which MyEG said the actual commencement of operations has yet to be determined at this juncture.

MyEG said its board of directors will release the necessary announcement to Bursa Malaysia should there be any material information which falls under the Main Market listing requirements.

Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) is partnering with four major aviation players, namely, Daher, ExecuJet, IER and XPeranti and Sigfox, in its aim to position Malaysia as a global hub.

MAHB had signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the four aviation players at the Farnborough International Airshow (FIA).

Its chief strategy officer Azli Mohamed pointed that the partnership with IER as well as XPeranti and Sigfox will be the kickstart of the co-creation framework that would translate in passengers experiencing the enhanced services which are automated and digitalized, while Daher and ExecuJet that will be part of the Subang Airport Regeneration initiative in Malaysia, is to give boost to the current airport’s ecosystems and provide more solutions to the industry.

Kumpulan Jetson Bhd has teamed up with Helios Photovoltaic Sdn Bhd to jointly bid for solar power projects in Sabah.

Jetson has entered into a Heads of Agreement with Helios Photovoltaic Sdn Bhd to jointly bid for the proposed projects, as well as to co-operate to procure the award of the whole or any of the contract packages for the proposed projects.

The two companies will form a special purpose vehicle to undertake the proposed projects, with both holding an equal stake.