Lityan: Selling to Suckers

Friday November 6, 2009
Lityan MD sells stake and pockets RM3.9mil


PETALING JAYA: Lityan Holdings Bhd group managing director and chief executive officer Nor Badli Mohd Alias has disposed of his entire stake in the company, a filing on Wednesday with Bursa Malaysia showed.

The stake, comprising 1.25 million shares or 1.98% of the issued shares, was disposed of at RM3.13 per share at a total value of RM3.91mil on Tuesday.

Nor Badli had purchased the shares en bloc on Oct 27 at RM1 per share, a separate filing on Oct 30 showed.

According to a source familiar with the restructuring of Lityan, the stake acquired and then sold by Nor Badli was part of the company’s restructuring scheme.

“As part of the resolutions passed by the shareholders for the restructuring programme, the group managing director and the executive director were both allowed to acquire up to a maximum 1.25 million shares and 750,000 shares respectively in support of the placement exercise,” he told StarBiz.

He added that as part of the restructuring plan, 17.2 million shares were issued to creditors, of which 16.8 million were successfully placed out and issued on Oct 27 at a reference price of RM1 per share.

The stock had traded at 1.6 sen in June 2006 before it was suspended.

Lityan’s share price has been surging since it emerged from Practice Note 17 status and relisted on Oct 30.

The stock closed yesterday at RM2.65.

Sources said interest in the company was largely due to it being in a partnership with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, and that the partnership had successfully bid for one component of Telekom Malaysia Bhd’s RM11.3bil high-speed broadband project.

Lityan was queried by Bursa, which issued an unusual market activity advisory on the counter on Tuesday, following which the shares tumbled 9.25% to RM2.45 on that day.

Trading in the company’s shares was halted less than half an hour before the market closed on the same day.



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Thursday November 5, 2009
Investors continue buying into Lityan
By FINTAN NG


PETALING JAYA: Investor interest in Lityan Holdings Bhd, which recently emerged from Practice Note 17 status as a listed subsidiary of Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH), has been intense on speculation of the company’s earnings potential resulting from a tie-up with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd as well as other Middle East project tenders.

Lityan group managing director and chief executive officer Nor Badli Mohd Alias said the share price volatility was likely due to the relatively lower public shareholding spread of the company with LTH having a 56% stake in the company.

“There’s a lot of interest in the company but people are not selling. Coupled with the low public shareholding spread, there’s bound to be a rise in the share price,” he told StarBiz.

On Tuesday, Lityan’s share price volatility earned the company an unusual market activity query from Bursa Malaysia.

The stock tumbled 9.3% to RM2.45 on the same day before trading in its shares was halted less than 30 minutes before the market closed.

Last Friday, the company’s shares surged 25.17% to close at RM1.74 from an opening price of RM1.39. From Oct 30 to Nov 4, the average trading volume was 13.68 million shares or 21.67% of the total share capital of 63.1 million shares.

Nor Badli had said last Friday that the company was in a tie-up with Huawei for Telekom Malaysia Bhd’s (TM) high-speed broadband (HSBB) project as well as tendering for projects in the Middle East.

Although TM group chief executive officer Datuk Zam Isa did not identify Huawei as one of the partners in the project in an earlier report, industry sources said the Shenzhen-based company was one of the technology partners in the RM11.3bil HSBB project.

Nor Badli said the company was in a tie-up with Huawei to tender for three packages in the HSBB project but declined to reveal details except that the company’s share of the packages would be based on its scope of works.

According to AmResearch Sdn Bhd, Lityan’s work in the project would involve fibre-to-the-home implementation and Internet protocol television infrastructure.

So far, only the package involving the roll-out of fibre optics for the last-mile to targeted high-density areas of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor has been announced.

“We don’t know when the results of the tender for the other packages will be announced. It’s been delayed six months,” Nor Badli said, adding that the tenders in the Middle East were done in conjunction with LTH.

“This will involve projects with a minimum total value of US$1bil,” he said.