Distribution of company announcements to the professional platforms, finance portals and syndication of important corporate news to a wide variety of news aggregators and financial news systems.
Kuala Lumpur, June 24, 2006 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Malaysia's softer property market may have impacted on the third quarter fiscal 2006 results of infrastructure giant, Gamuda, but there is hope for the company in the coming months, according to analysts.
Despite third quarter revenue plunging 39 per cent year-on-year (YoY) and net profit sinking 46.5 per cent YoY, the group's construction division has hit bottom, Avenue Securities noted.
The broker projected the construction arm would 'improve' next quarter given its MYR2 billion order book.
Riding the optimism, Mayban too agreed, saying the construction division was likely to stay positive this year due to newly-commenced projects in Qatar.
HLG Research, on other hand, went further. It predicted Gamuda would clinch a sizeable contract 'soon' worth MYR600 million despite not having secured any deal over the last six months.
In Mayban's opinion, Gamuda was also forecast to see a higher contribution from its water and expressway division in fiscal 2006 thus raising profit before tax by 20 per cent to MYR60 million.
Additionally, the broker was encouraged with the generous interim dividend payout of 7 sen per share in the first half of 2006. As a result, it upgraded its dividend payout forecast for the year to 16 sen from 6 sen.
Mayban retained its Hold recommendation on the stock while Avenue stayed with its Underperform stance.
Gamuda is an infrastructure company with core business in engineering and construction, infrastructure concessions and township development. It is listed on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia.
