KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 3): Atlan Holdings Bhd rose 10 sen or 2% to its intraday high at RM4.96 after Edge Research said the diversified company's share trade volume had risen.

Edge Research said there had been a pick up in Atlan's share trade volume since mid-October, probably due to the announcment of a second interim dividend of 10 sen. The stock traded ex-dividend last week (Oct 28).

Atlan is featured as a stock with momentum in an Edge Research report, which is published in The Edge Financial Daily today. At 3.27pm, Atlan saw 698,000 shares done, giving it a market capitalisation of RM1.26 billion.

Edge Research noted that Atlan was a thinly-traded stock due to its low public shareholding spread of 14.29%.

"Atlan is in the midst of placing out up to 15% of its existing shares, in order to comply with the minimum 25% public shareholding by December 31," it said.

Atlan is the country’s largest duty-free retailer, operating a network of 36 outlets in Malaysia under the “ZON” brand. It also has auto-parts manufacturing and property arms.

According to Edge Research, Atlan may appeal to yield-seeking investors as it paid decent dividends.  For financial year ended February 28, 2014, Altan paid dividends of 65 sen per share.

Excluding a special dividend of 40 sen, the yield was still a high 5%, Edge Research said.

For the six months ended August 31, Atlan's net profit tumbled to RM21.17 million from RM151.56 million in the same period a year earlier. This was despite revenue growing to RM351.8 million from RM351.2 million previously.