KUALA LUMPUR (Mar 10): Brahim's Holdings Bhd rose as much as 16 sen or 19% after the firm said it planned to buy a local food and beverage (F&B) company to reduce dependence on its core in-flight catering business.

 Brahim's (fundamental: 0.35; valuation: 1.2) rose to an intraday high of RM1.02 before paring gains to 98.5 sen at 10:10am. The bourse's eighth-largest gainer saw some 9.4 million shares traded.

Brahim's share trade was suspended from 10:12am last Friday till 5pm yesterday. The stock resumed trading today.

Yesterday, Brahim's told the exchange it was in talks to buy a local F&B company to increase shareholders' value.

Brahim's said the terms and conditions of the acquisition had yet to be finalised.

Brahim's statement to the exchange was in response to a report in this week's The Edge Malaysia, a business and investment weekly. The weekly, quoting sources, reported that Brahim's was in talks to buy TCRS Restaurants Sdn Bhd.

TCRS owns and runs The Chicken Rice Shop, Sweet Chat and Dubu-Dubu in Malaysia. TCRS also owns a stake in Pancake House International.

Brahim's move to expand its F&B business comes a time when it needs to cut dependence on its main customer, Malaysia Airlines (MAS). In-flight catering revenue from MAS accounts for some 80% of Brahim's top line, Edge Weekly reported.

(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.)