KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 6): There is growing interest in Benalec Holdings Bhd; its trading volume has been rising in the past two trading days.

The stock rose to a day’s high of 68 sen. As at 4pm today, it is trading at 67 sen, up 3.5 sen or 5.5%, with 8.4 million shares traded.

Benalec’s (fundamental: 0.95; valuation: 1.2) share price has been trading on an upward trend since Monday. The stock gained 4.72% in the past two trading days.

In a note dated Aug 3, AmResearch analyst Mak Hoy Ken maintained a "buy" call on Benalec with unchanged fair value of 95 sen following news report that a few development projects in Malacca could be in the offing.

The projects included the Federal approval for an additional RM180 million for the Malacca river beautification and rehabilitation project.

Mak said other potential catalysts include a proposal to expand the Malacca International Airport and RM1.1 billion coastal highway in the state.

“If followed through, this latest development certainly bodes well for Benalec’s land concessions in Malacca, which has seen more tourism-related investments in recent years.

“We estimate the group to have about 240 acres of land inventories in Malacca and RM523 million in future land sales with SPAs (287 acres) that are awaiting the issuance of land titles. Once realised, these transactions could help provide some degree of earnings visibility to the group over the next two years,” Mak said.

In a research note today, RHB Research has a "buy" call on Benalec with a target price of 67 sen. The research house said the counter was testing the 64 sen level in its latest session.

“Traders may buy if this level is breached in the near term, with a target price of 67 sen, followed by 70.5sen.

“In the meantime, the stock may trend sideways if the 64 sen level cannot be surpassed. Support may be found at 59 sen, where traders can exit upon a breach,” it said.

(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.)