Tabung Haji slashes stake in Borneo Aqua Harvest

Borneo Aqua Harvest Bhd hires about 100 locals in the fish farm. It helps to provide employment and alleviate poverty in the country's poorest state.

KUALA LUMPUR: Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH) has ceased to be a substantial shareholder of Borneo Aqua Harvest Bhd (Bahvest) after reducing its shareholding by slightly more than half, or 21 million shares.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, the aquaculture company said LTH sold the 10 sen shares on Dec 29, reducing its stake to 4.61% (or 19.59 million shares) from 9.56% previously.

LTH had been the second largest shareholder of Bahvest after Bahvest managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Lo Fui Ming who, according to the company’s 2015 annual report, owns 11.82%.

In November, Bahvest proposed to diversifiy the group’s core businesses to include the exploration for minerals, mining and other mining related businesses.

This will be done through the purchase of the entire stake in Wullersdorf Resources Sdn Bhd (WRSB), which has 33-year mining right over 28ha with mineral resources in Tawau, Sabah, for RM131mil. WRSB has total sublease land measuring 317.7ha in Tawau, but the rest -- 289.7ha -- is yet to be explored and prospected.

For the financial year ended March 31, 2015, the group recorded a larger loss before taxation of RM4.566mil compared to RM3.272mil in the preceding year. For the half-year ended Sept 30, 2015, the company made a pre-tax profit of RM988,000.

Bahvest shares shed 2 sen to close at RM1.13 on Monday.