KUALA LUMPUR (May 13): Shares in Boustead Heavy Industries Corporation Bhd (BHIC) rose as much as 6 sen or 2.87% in the early trade after the company's earnings for the first financial quarter ended March 31, 2015 (1QFY15) rises ten-fold.

At 10.14am, BHIC gained six sen to trade at RM2.15 albeit thin trading margin of 32,800 units. It was among the top 20 gainers across the bourse.

It was traded between RM2.12 and RM2.15 in the morning as compared to yesterday's close of RM2.09.

With the current price, it has a market capitalisation of RM519.28 million.

BHIC (fundamental: 0.9; valuation: 0.45) announced yesterday that its net profit for the 1QFY15 ballooned to RM8.42 million or 3.39 sen per share compared to RM779,000 in the previous corresponding quarter.

It attributed the surge in earnings to its heavy engineering segment, which contributed positively to the group's financials with brisk progress on the fabrication of the Belum Satelite topsides facilities for Murphy's Sarawak SK309/311 gas development project.

"Higher share of profits from joint venture (JV) companies such as Contraves Advanced Devices Group and BHIC AutoServices Sdn Bhd also boosted group earnings," it added.

Revenue for the quarter, however, declined by 1.25% to RM63.4 million compared to RM64.2 million in 1QFY14.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)