This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 28, 2017

Lay Hong Bhd (-ve)
SHARES in Lay Hong Bhd (fundamental: 0.6/3, valuation: 1.7/3), which triggered our momentum algorithm yesterday for the third time this year, settled one sen or 1.09% higher at 93 sen.

The counter saw some 1.47 million shares traded compared with its 200-day average volume of 804,311 shares.

On July 7, Yap Chor How, who is the son of Lay Hong Bhd executive chairman Yap Hoong Chai, was appointed as an executive director of PanPages Bhd.

Chor How, 40, is credited to have started the operations of grocery retailer G-Mart Borneo Retail Sdn Bhd in 2009, and expanded the number of stores from an initial nine stores to 17 stores across Sabah.

The group announced in May its plans to sell a 30% stake in G-Mart to PanPages for RM10.75 million in an effort to tap into the retail electronic commerce business. The sale of the stake was then completed on June 20, 2017.

At the current share price, Lay Hong is currently trading at 2.01 times its book value.