KUALA LUMPUR (April 28): Based on corporate announcements and news flow today, companies in focus tomorrow (April 29) may include: MyEG Services Bhd, AirAsia X Bhd, Ho Wah Genting Bhd, Yinson Holdings Bhd and Permaju Industries Bhd.

MyEG Philippines Inc, a unit of MyEG Services Bhd, has rolled out a contact tracing and digital health profiling smartphone app known as MyEGuard in the cities of Paranaque, Metro Manila, Kidapawan, North Cotabato and Ilagan, in the Philippines. The system was jointly developed in Malaysia by MyEG Services and S5 Systems Sdn Bhd.

The group said the roll-out of MyEGuard will enable authorities in these cities to carry out much-needed contact tracing as part of efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19, not only in the Philippines but also globally.

AirAsia X Bhd’s (AAX) passenger load factor has declined to 74% in the first quarter of this year (1Q2020), down by nine percentage points year-on-year (y-o-y), the group revealed. 

The long-haul budget airline also said it carried 1.14 million passengers during the quarter, 25% less y-o-y compared with 1.51 million previously, while its available seats per kilometre (ASK) capacity retreated 21% y-o-y to 6.87 billion from 8.71 billion. It blamed the significant drops on the Covid-19 outbreak, which has affected travel demand globally and led it to reduce flight frequencies and temporarily suspend certain routes to mitigate the problem.

The major shareholder of wire and cable manufacturer Ho Wah Genting Bhd (HWGB) intends to raise its stake in the loss-making company at nearly half the current market price of its shares. 

HWGB has received a notice of conditional voluntary takeover offer from major shareholder Ho Wah Genting Holding Sdn Bhd (HWG Holding/offeror) to acquire the remaining shares it does not own in HWGB at 12.5 sen each compared with the current market price of 20 sen. The offeror also intends to buy the remaining HWGB warrants at one sen each. However, HWG Holding intends to keep HWGB listed on Bursa Malaysia’s Main Market.

Japan’s Sumitomo Corp is taking up a 25% stake in Yinson Holdings Bhd’s unit that operates a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel facility in Brazil. The stake is valued at US$3.34 million (RM14.57 million), Yinson said.

Yinson's indirect subsidiary, Yinson Acadia Ltd, and Sumitomo’s wholly-owned Japan Offshore Facility Investment Pte Ltd (JOFI) have entered into an agreement to facilitate the stake acquisition. The deal will result in JOFI owning 25% of Yinson Boronia Consortium Pte Ltd, which controls Yinson Boronia Production B.V (YBP) and Yinson Boronia Serviços de Operação Ltd (YBS).

Permaju Industries Bhd's wholly-owned Team Japs Sdn Bhd has teamed up with AT Engineering Solution Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT Systematization Bhd (ATS), to distribute the Penaclo solution via an engineered sanitising box (Sanitizer Gateway) that is able to dispense sanitiser and disinfectant liquid solutions evenly on any person walking through it.

Separately, Permaju also announced that its subsidiary Cergaz Autohaus Sdn Bhd had inked an memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Air For Life (M) Sdn Bhd (AFLM) relating to the sub-distribution of the latter’s air purification system. The MoU is intended for both parties to work towards the appointment of Cergaz Autohaus as a non-exclusive sub-distributor to sell and market AFLM’s products to its customers in the automotive sectors.