(This article has been updated.)

KUALA LUMPUR (April 23): Loss-making Nexgram Holdings Bhd, which announced its venture into distributing medical ventilators, has soared for the third day in a row. Its trading volume has spiked to 74.5 million shares this morning compared with its 200-day moving average volume of 2.61 million.

The penny stock went up to two sen shortly after the opening bell this morning. It is the second most actively traded counter on Bursa Malaysia so far today.

The counter rose 33% earlier this morning and was traded unchanged at 1.5 sen at 10.50am.

Trading volume spiked to 74.45 million — the highest level since April last year.  

In a filing yesterday, Nexgram, which has been loss making since 2016, announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Nexgram Industries Sdn Bhd (NISB) has signed a distribution agreement with PT Rafa Topaz Utama to distribute the ventilators, where the price and quantity of the products will be sold based on the purchase order as required by the latter.

The company said the agreement will be for an initial period of one year and will be automatically renewed for an additional one year, unless either party terminates the agreement.

Nexgram has also inked a deal with Tri-G Technologies Sdn Bhd to distribute Covid-19 medical supplies, including machines, reagents, test kits and coronavirus test kits in Malaysia for a period of two years.

However, it said the distributorship is subject to Tri-G obtaining the necessary approvals from the Institute for Medical Research (IMR), Ministry of Health Malaysia for those medical devices concerned.

For the first half of the financial year ended Jan 31, 2020 (1HFY20), Nexgram’s net loss widened to RM1.57 million from RM712,000 in the previous year. Its revenue shrank 21.42% to RM20.94 million, from RM26.65 million.

For the second financial quarter ended Jan 21, 2020, it posted a net loss of RM1.63 million compared with a net profit of RM252,000 a year ago, while revenue shed 40% to RM8.93 million from RM15 million.

The company attributed the wider losses to the lower revenue from its logistics division and lacklustre performance from its subsidiaries involved in dealing with security and video surveillance equipment.

The company said its legal fees have also increased, which contributed to higher losses in the most recent quarter.