KUALA LUMPUR: MMC Corp Bhd’s 39.25%-owned Zelan Bhd, which has yet to secure any projects this year, is actively participating in tenders for local construction projects, including those for the Pengerang  Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC) project in Pengerang, Johor.

Managing director Adnan Mohammad said Zelan is looking for more local projects to bump up its order book in the hope of getting back on a firmer financial footing.

“They (PIPC) have been dishing out a lot of tenders, so to say that we are not participating is [also] not true,” he told journalists after Zelan’s annual general meeting yesterday.

While he declined to comment on Zelan’s overall tender book size, and specifically the size of jobs in Pengerang, Adnan said the bidding for Pengerang is “quite substantial”.

“Given the magnitude of material off-loading facilities (MOLF) jetty for the Rapid (Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development) project worth RM248.5 million, which we secured last year, you can imagine another project would be double or triple this [value].

“We are trying to put Zelan back on track and we are looking [for] more local projects. This is part of our initiative to turn Zelan around to see better numbers on our operating [profit] level,” he said.

Zelan’s order book currently stands at RM1.1 billion, which should last the group until 2017, he said. It includes the drawbridge project connecting Muara North and Muara South in the Kuala Terengganu City Centre project, which is scheduled to be completed in 2017.

In addition, Zelan’s MOLF and International Islamic University Malaysia’s Gambung Campus projects will be completed next year, so it is looking out for at least one or two major projects this year.

Hence, the group is not looking to issue any dividends yet as it focuses on strengthening its financials.

“Within these two to three years, we still have to strengthen Zelan’s financials first and address our retained earnings before we [decide to pay out dividends],” said Adnan.

On the group level, Zelan had negative RM7.6 million in retained earnings as at March 31, 2014 (FY14) — its previous financial year end before it was changed to Dec 31 — but the figure was a positive RM30.9 million as at Dec 31, 2014.

For the nine months ended Dec 31, 2014 (9M14), Zelan reported RM38.5 million in net profit, but did not pay out any dividends.

Adnan said Zelan is still in the midst of a turnaround, from which he hopes to see the group reporting stronger numbers on the operating level.

Zelan closed unchanged at 36.5 sen yesterday, with a market capitalisation of RM300 million.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on May 15, 2015.