Mulpha Land Bhd (+ve)

MULPHA Land (fundamental: 1.3/3; valuation: 2.4/3) rose 5.5 sen or 11.1% to all-time high at 55 sen over the past week. Last Friday, it received a mandatory take-over offer from entrepreneur Fakhri Yassin to acquire the remaining shares for 49.7 sen per share. 

The unconditional take-over offer was triggered with the exercise of a call option to acquire 75 million shares, resulting in Fakhri Yassin and related parties holding 50.4% of Mulpha Land. The offeror intends to maintain its listing status. 

Mulpha Land, the property arm of Mulpha International, has development projects in the Klang Valley, Johor, Penang and Kedah. For 2014, revenue dipped 4.4% y-o-y to RM45.1 million while pre-tax profit dropped 30.6% to RM8.2 million, mainly due to an impairment loss of RM7.6 million on development lands.

Net gearing ratio was relatively high at 72.8%. The stock trades at a 12-month trailing P/E of 13.1 times and 0.89 times its book value.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 10, 2015.