Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (May 5): Ageson Bhd’s share price rose as much as 25% today, after the company said it secured a RMB44.8 billion (RM27.5 billion) purchase order from a China-based company for the supply of sand over 15 years.

At 10.26am, the counter rose 2.5 sen or 15.6% to 18.5 sen, with some 124.83 million shares traded, which accounts for about 21% of its total outstanding share base of 582.11 million shares.

Earlier, the counter rose as much as four sen or 25% to a record high of 20 sen.

Yesterday, Ageson announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Esa Pile Sdn Bhd accepted the purchase order from Guangzhou Kaishengda Industrial Co Ltd (GKI) for the supply of river and sea sand for 15 years.

The company said it expected to supply 50 million cubic metres of river sand per year and 100 million cubic metres of sea sand per year to GKI, commencing in the third quarter of 2020.

The counter has seen its share price continue to climb since the earlier part of the year, as it continued to secure sand supply contracts from several companies, each worth in the hundreds of millions, with the most recent order being its largest yet at about RM27.5 billion.

Previously, Ageson also announced another RM330 million sand supply project which it will undertake under a joint venture with Singapore firm Navis Marinus Private Ltd, as well as another RM116.8 million contract to sell natural sand to Hong Kong-based Boyijun Resources (HK) Ltd.

However, Ageson did not disclose where it will be sourcing the sand from, as Malaysia under the previous Pakatan Harapan government had banned all sea sand exports to ensure enough supply to satisfy domestic demand.

In July last year, Dr Xavier Jayakumar, who was the Water, Land and Natural Resources Minister at the time, also said there were only four companies in the country which have been licensed to export river sand to countries like China, India, Mauritius and Brunei.

According to Bloomberg data, the two largest shareholders of Ageson are Chin Kok Foong (16.23%) and Datuk Larry Liew Kok Leong (12.09%), each of whom had increased their stakes substantially via an off-market trade back in July last year.

Notably, Liew also emerged as a substantial shareholder of ARB Bhd in January 2019. As at Sept 6, 2019, Liew held a direct interest of 17.98% in the IT firm.

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