KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 19): Despite being issued an unusual market activity (UMA) query by the stock exchange last Friday, IFCA MSC Bhd continued its upward trend today after founder and CEO Ken Yong revealed to The Edge Financial Daily expansion plans for the property software developer.

Yong also refuted market perception that the group is highly dependent on a windfall from the goods and services tax (GST) upgrade.

At 12:08 pm, IFCA (Fundamental Score: 3; Valuation Score: 1.5) was up two sen or 2.11% to 97 sen. The counter saw 8.63 million shares changing hands and was traded to a high of 98.5 sen this morning.

Concurrently, IFCA’s warrants (IFCA-WA) also gained two sen to 87 sen on a turnover of 4.66 million.

IFCA, which was last year’s best performing stock after being discovered as one of the companies providing GST-compliant accounting software upgrades for businesses, was slapped with a UMA query by Bursa Securities last Friday after rising 13 sen or 15.85% over the week.

This was the second UMA query to IFCA in less than a year. At the last traded price, the one-for-one warrants were traded at a zero premium to its mother share. IFCAMSC-WA has a strike price of 10 sen and will expire on Feb 15, 2016.

While IFCA declared it was unaware of any rumour or corporate development that could stoke buying interest, Yong said in The Edge Financial Daily's interview that the company planned to double its sales offices in China to 15, which, by “conservative estimates”, would result in its China’s sales nearing group revenue for year-to-date.

“Averaging RM4 million in sales per office in China, that number (RM60 million) is not unachievable or ambitious. To us, it is a conservative number and we are expecting very high growth from China,” Yong was quoted as saying.

In comparison, IFCA’s revenue for the nine months ended Sept 30, 2014 (9MFY14) was RM58.05 million while net profit was RM11.95 million. Its bottom line grew more than 630% from the previous corresponding period.

While Yong admitted that its local business – which makes up 72% of its revenue for 9MFY14 – benefited from GST upgrade demand, he said the upgrades made up only about 20% of its sales.

(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.)