KUALA LUMPUR (Mar 16): PUC Founder (MSC) Bhd is venturing into the solar energy business to bring in a steady revenue stream for the diversified group. The venture will involve the supply of electricity to state-controlled utility Tenaga Nasional Bhd.
In a filing with the bourse today, PUC Founder group managing director Cheong Chia Chieh said its subsidiary MaxGreen Energy Sdn Bhd (MGE) was selected as a feed-in-tariff (FiT) approval holder by the Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia (SEDA).
"Once awarded as a FiT approval holder, we will proceed to sign the agreement with TNB (Tenaga) upon fulfilling the conditions imposed by SEDA and TNB. We will be supplying power to TNB, which is a sustainable source of income for the company.
"The solar PV plant is to be set up in Sungai Petani, Kedah, with a land area of 2.5 acres," PUC Founder (fundamental: 2.25; valuation: 1.8) said. "TNB will sign a contract with MGE, whereby the power produced will be sold to TNB at a fix rate under the FiT rates," Cheong said.
According to Cheong, the plan is to develop and operate a one-megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) plant to produce electricity, which would be supplied to Tenaga.
He said PUC Founder planned to expand the output capacity of its solar photovoltaic plant.
"We intend to expand our solar PV plants capacity up to 50MWp in the near future, and will seek appropriate funding options such as bank borrowings, rights issue, private placement and strategic investments," he said.
PUC Founder's existing businesses include fingerprint-verification products and IT solutions provider of electronic publishing.
At 2:35pm, PUC Founder shares rose one sen or 6% to 17 sen, for a market capitalisation of RM180.7 million.
The stock had gained 26% this year, surpassing the KLCI's 1% advance.
(Notes: 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.)