KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 18): Top Glove Corp Bhd purchased RM69.94 million worth of shares in its latest share buy-back exercise today, marking the seventh consecutive trading day of buying its own shares this month.

In a bourse filing, the glove maker said it bought 10 million shares, at between RM6.89 and RM7.01 apiece. Its cumulative net outstanding treasury shares to date now stand at 115.42 million shares, equivalent to a 1.41% stake.

Top Glove has spent RM489.23 million so far this month. This is on top of the RM355 million it forked out in September for share buy–backs.

This means it has spent about RM844.23 million on share buy-backs alone, which is over three times the RM227.11 million net profit it made in the first six months of its financial year ended Aug 31, 2020 (1HFY20).

According to a separate filing, the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) purchased 1.51 million shares in Top Glove on Nov 13.

The retirement fund bought the company's shares in three tranches: 1.16 million, 297,000 and 263,100. It also disposed of 212,200 shares that day.

Following the share purchases, EPF owns a 6.43% stake or 519.58 million shares in the company.

Today, CGS-CIMB Securities Sdn Bhd said that Top Glove's revenue and net profit for the financial year ending Aug 31, 2021 (FY21) will see a negative impact of 1.3% and 1.8% respectively, from the 14-day Covid-19-driven Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) in place from yesterday to Nov 30, 2020 at the group's specific foreign workers' dormitories in Meru, Klang, Selangor, which is affecting about 5,700 workers.

"Note that for every week the EMCO is extended for these 5,700 workers, our FY21F net profit estimate for Top Glove will be reduced by another 0.7%," said CGS-CIMB analyst Walter Aw.

"We understand that all 5,700 of the affected workers, who are mostly foreign labour, will not be allowed to work in the factories during EMCO. As a result, Top Glove's factories are likely to be operating at reduced capacities in the next two weeks," he added.

Nonetheless, Aw said the research house has not made any changes to its FY21-FY23 earnings per share estimates as it believes the impact of this EMCO will be minimal.

"We also reiterate our add call, with a target price of RM10.00, based on 17 times calendar year 2022 price-earnings (in line with its five-year historical mean)," he added.

Top Glove's shares closed up one sen or 0.14% at RM7.01, despite the overall negative sentiment on the broader market today. At its closing, the group was valued at RM56.72 billion.

Some 58.66 million shares were done, exceeding its 200-day average volume of 31.6 million shares.

Year to date, however, the stock is still up 352% from when it was trading at RM1.55 on Jan 2 this year.