Thursday 28 Mar 2024
By
main news image

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on March 6, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: UEM Edgenta Bhd sees continued improvements in margin to drive its profit growth in the financial year ending Dec 31, 2019 (FY19).

Chief executive officer Datuk Azmir Merican said the group will focus on pushing its margin upwards this year by continuing to invest in technology and innovation, as well as changing of its delivery model through adopting the performance-based contracts for its infrastructure segment, which he believes can improve its cost efficiency and service delivery.

“We were successful in 2018 because of margin expansion. We will continue to push for more margin expansion (this year),” he told a media briefing yesterday.

For FY18, UEM Edgenta’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation rose 0.7% to 12.2% from 11.5% in FY17.

The group also said it will allocate RM118 million in capital expenditure for FY19, mainly for investment in automation and technology-related activities to drive better margin and reduce dependency on foreign labour.

Azmir said he has called on the government to provide incentives for industries other than the manufacturing sector to promote automation.

Azmir went on to say that by investing in equipment will help to reduce manpower costs, which in turn will reduce foreign labour and the amount of money they send abroad.

In the past three years, the group had spent a total of RM100 million in capital expenditure for the infrastructure services division.

On its healthcare support services, UEM Edgenta remains optimistic of its prospects as it is confident of winning a larger market share.

It believes that the higher budget allocated in Budget 2019 for public healthcare spending will augur well for the group as it looks to partner with the government on more initiatives.

Azmir said UEM Edgenta also wants to tap into opportunities in Singapore given that its ministry of health is restructuring the public healthcare sector there.

In Taiwan, the group is looking to upsell more services to its existing customers.

Meanwhile, UEM Edgenta expects to maintain its FY18 dividend payout in FY19.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share