KUALA LUMPUR (June 18): Shares in MSM Malaysia Holdings Bhd soared as much as 18.1% in early trade today, as the country's largest refined sugar producer aims to turn profitable in FY20.

At 10.30am, the stock pared some of its gains to rise 10.34% or six sen to 64 sen, with a trading volume of some 43.57 million shares, making it the sixth most active counter across Bursa.

MSM group chief executive officer Datuk Khairil Anuar Aziz previously said the group intends to maximise the potential of its Johor plant, which has a total sugar production capacity of about one million tonnes a year.

The group aims to raise the utilisation rate of the Johor plant to 50%, from the current 34% by year end, which may help in lowering production cost.

Meanwhile, the group will undertake aggressive product diversification into premix and liquid sugar, to cater to industrial demand across Asia, added Khairil.

“We want to grow this business and our aim is to be the largest liquid sugar provider in Asia. It will be tough, but we have seen increasing demand. We just started [this newly-launched export product], so we are quite conservative [on our target] this year,” he said.

In the first quarter ended March 31, 2020 (1QFY20), the group widened its net loss to RM34.71 million, from RM7.06 million a year earlier, a filing with Bursa Malaysia on May 27 showed.

MSM reported a net loss of RM299.77 million in FY19 compared with a net profit of RM35.66 million in FY18.

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