KUALA LUMPUR: Gamuda Bhd
fell in early trade Thursday after earnings came in below expectations, but Maybank Investment Bank Research recommended buying the stock on weakness.
The engineering, property, and infrastructure conglomerate slid 29 sen, or 5.65% to RM4.83 at 10.01am. It has risen about 3% so far this year.
Gamuda reported a 5% increase in net profit to RM215.13mil for the first quarter ended Oct 31, 2025 (1QFY26), up from RM205.39mil a year earlier. Revenue declined to RM3.84bil, compared to RM4.14bil in the same period last year.
The group declared an interim dividend of 5 sen per share, unchanged from the previous year.
Maybank IB said Gamuda’s earnings and dividends came in below expectations owing to the winding down of major Australian jobs.
It said Gamuda’s 1QFY26 net profit of RM215.1mil, up 5% year-on-year but down 35% quarter-on-quarter, accounted for 14% of its full-year forecast.
“As a secondary check, 1QFY26 revenue of RM3.84bil, down 7% year-on-year, also came in below expectations at 15% of the full-year estimate.
“The first interim dividend per share of 5 sen was similarly weak at 33% of its full-year projection,” the research house said.
Gamuda attributed the shortfall to the near completion of Australian projects such as the Sydney Metro West – Western Tunnelling Package (97% progress) and the M1 Motorway (84%).
“Although we maintain our annual job wins assumptions at RM25bil, we cut our FY26E and FY27E earnings by 13% and 8% and raise FY28 earnings by 4% to reflect the delayed execution of job wins.
“That said, our FY27 earnings cut is narrowed to 6% and FY28E earnings raise is augmented to 11% after accounting for the Chencharu Close property project in Singapore,” Maybank IB said.
It has also trimmed its sum-of-the-parts target price to RM5.79 from RM6.17.
“Should Gamuda’s share price ease today, we encourage investors to buy on weakness.”
Meanwhile, MBSB Research noted that Gamuda’s results were below expectations, coming in at 14.6% of its full-year forecast and 15.4% of the street’s projections.
It expects earnings to gradually improve in the coming quarters as progress accelerates across domestic and overseas projects.
As at Oct-25, Gamuda’s outstanding order book stood at RM37bil, out of which RM17.8bil (48.1%) are Malaysian projects, followed by Taiwan at RM9.4bil (25.4%) and Australia at RM7.4bil (20.0%).
MBSB Research said Gamuda’s management expects several contract wins before the end of CY25, which could lift the order book to about RM45bil.
For CY26, management reiterated its target of RM50bil with prospects coming from water, data centre (DC), rail, highway and renewable energy projects, it said.
“We are making no changes to our projections as we expect earnings to improve in the coming quarters, and we maintain our sum-of-the-parts target price of RM6.35,” MBSB Research said, adding that Gamuda remains its top pick for the construction sector.
