Ekovest Bhd has agreed with major shareholder Tan Sri Lim Kang Hoo (pic) to launch a takeover of another company he controls, Iskandar Waterfront City Bhd (IWC).
KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas-linked stocks weighed on blue chips on Wednesday on profit taking but stocks linked to Tan Sri Lim Kang Hoo such as Ekovest and Iskandar Waterfront City (IWC) climbed in active trade.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI was down 2.48 points or 0.15% to 1,639.46. Turnover was 3.34 billion shares valued at RM2.35bil. There were 441 gainers, 371 losers and 417 counters unchanged.
Petronas Chemical fell 10 sen to RM9 and erased 1.38 points from the KLCI, Petronas Daganagn lost 14 sen to RM25 and Petronas Gas six sen to RM17.62. Dialog shed one sen to RM3.24.
The decline came despite the jump in crude oil prices, where US light climbed 43 cents to US$64.41 and Brent added 41 cents to US$71.02.
MAHB was the top loser, down 19 sen to RM6.75 on investors worries about a decline in passe ger traffic following the imposition of the passenger departure levy. The levy which was set at RM20 to Asean countries and RM40 for non-Asean countries and will come into effect on June 1.
As for telcos, Axiata lost four sen to RM4.15 after it confirmed the Supreme Court of Nepal has issued its full written judgment in relation to the public interest litigation (PIL) concerning the former's buyout of Ncell Private Ltd. Digi and Maxis were flat at RM4.69 and RM5.60.
Among the banks, Maybank shed two sen to RM9.28, Hong Leong Bank two sen to RM20.08, CIMB and AmBank one sen lower at RM5.08 and RM4.44 wbut RHB Bank edge dup three sen to RM5.69 and Public Bank staged a mid rebound after the recent seling, gaining six sen to RM22.64.
Ekovest rose nine sen to 63.5 sen – the highest since September 2018 while the warrants jumped eight sen to 15 sen. IWCity surged 15.5 sen to RM1.01 and the highest in one year. The three counters accounted for 532.21 million shares traded.
Bloomberg data showed the first resistance for Ekovest's share price was 55.3 sen and first support was 53.3 sen. As for IWCity, the first resistance was 88 sen and its firsy support was 82 sen.
The interest in the shares were on investors' expectations of other mega projects as the government relooks at the High Speed Railway project between KL and Singapore.
FGV rose four sen to RM1.30 in active trade as the government seeks to turar ound Felda by injecting RM6bil in stages as it restructures its operations and strengthens its governance in order to improve the fortunes of the agency and its settlers.
Crude palm oil for third month delivery slumped RM52 to RM2,160 per tonne. Bloomberg reported that Malaysian Palm Oil Board data showed March stockpiles dropped less than market had expected.
While reserves in Malaysia declined to a five-month low as exports jumped the most since September, they still came in at 2.92 million metric tons, above the 2.87 million tons estimated
in a Bloomberg survey last week.
“The market is seeing stocks levels as not low enough,” according to Sathia Varqa, owner of Palm Oil Analytics. “Despite the fall, stocks are still seen as high” and that’s pressuring prices, he was quoted saying by Bloomberg.
The ringgit fell 0.32% against the US dollar to 4.1068 and slipped 0.15% versus the euro to 4.6251 and lost 0.21% against the Singapore dollar to 3.0330. However, it climbed 0.09% to the pound sterling to 5.3622.
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