Vastalux confident despite weak debut

 

VASTALUX Energy made a weak debut on Bursa Malaysia yesterday, the stock opening for trading at a 17 sen discount over its offer price.

The shares were offered at 75 sen a piece and started trade at 58 sen each in an overall weak market. The stock ended at 52.5 sen yesterday.

Operation-wise, however, the company was bullish about meeting what it promised shareholders in its listing prospectus.

Executive director Azman Abd Ghafar said Vastalux has started expanding into Indonesia and Vietnam.

"Now it is time to deliver what we promised as in the prospectus. We are confident (meeting the promise options to the shareholders)," he said.

Speaking to reporters when launching Vastalux's debut on Bursa Malaysia yesterday, Azman said the company was also confident of meeting minimum requirement in number of public shareholders holding shares of no less than 100 shares each.

The minimum requirement was 1,000 public shareholders and Vastalux was allowed until March 11 next year to meet the requirement.

"We got to take advantage of the time frame of six months. The amount of time given, we are quite confident of achieving the required expectations within six months. It can also happen sooner," he said.

Azman said the company will continue meeting potential investors by organising roadshows.

"We will continue to do the roadshows even after the initial public offering. This promotional exercise will continue. We believe our fundamentals are good and the process of selling our shares will continue," Azman said.

Vastalux's public offer was under-subscribed where out of the 12 million shares offered to the public, only 580 applications for 712,300 shares were received.

Vastalux executive vice chairman Mohamad Nor Abdul Rashid said the company aims to become a prefered engineering company for oil and gas and petrochemicals in the region.

"The company intends to expand its business into key growth markets such as the Philippines, the Middle East and North Africa from next year onwards and India and Myanmar by 2011, to add to the company's existing overseas presence in Indonesia and Vietnam," he said.