Unisem group MD John Chia ups stake during selldown

Unisem chairman and group managing director John Chia Tet bought 150,000 shares on Thursday at an average price of RM1.89.

KUALA LUMPUR: Chipmaker Unisem (M) Bhd, which saw its shares hammered down after announcing a disappointing set of results in the first quarter ended March 31, 2018, saw its top official buying shares from the open market.

A filing with Bursa Malaysia on Friday showed Unisem chairman and group managing director John Chia Sin Tet buying 150,000 shares on Thursday at an average price of RM1.89.

Another filing showed that Jayvest Holdings Sdn Bhd, in which he is deemed interest, had bought 110,000 shares at an average price of RM1.87 each on Thursday.

After the recent transactions, his direct stake increased to 58.47 million shares and his indirect stake via Jayvest was raised to 119.52 million shares.

Unisem shares tumbled 18% or 40 sen to RM1.82 on Wednesday while it slipped one sen to RM1.81 on Thursday. 

Unisem’s net profit slumped 87% in the first quarter ended March 31 due to a weaker US dollar against the ringgit, and lower profit margins arising from a change in product mix.

The group posted a net profit of RM6.05mil in the quarter compared with RM44.9mil previously, while revenue fell 11% to RM321.55mil from RM360.25mil.

CIMB Equities Research retained its Add rating for Unisem but cut its target price from RM3.60 to RM2.50 due to the weak investor sentiment and rising market volatility. 

“Although Unisem is facing a challenging near-term outlook due to forex volatility, we believe the group’s fundamental growth remains intact driven by its strategic expansion towards 8-inch and 12-inch wafer bumping capacity in Ipoh and Chengdu that will allow it to gain better economies of scale than its OSAT peers in the next 12-18 months. Also, we expect narrowing losses in its Batam operation,” CIMB Research said.