Company news

MERS affecting South Korea could be another blow to aviation Sector. SARS gave global aviation industry a huge blow back in 2003.

Oceanus Group entered into a MOU with BioValence Sdn. Bhd. to set up a JV company based in China for the distribution of shrimp.

Raffles Education Corp’s subsidiary entered into a share subscription agreement with Axiom Properties Limited to increase its shareholding up to 19.9%.

TIH Limited’s indirect subsidiary entered into a shareholders agreement to invest in Chang Chun Road Limited, which is set up for a real estate deal in Thailand.

Dutech Holdings has established a subsidiary in Philippines, whereby it will be principally involved in the development of banking safes and other banking products.

Raffles Education Corp diversification strategy starts to bear fruit.

Target price to $0.65

Near a turning point Higher dividend payout declared. Stripping out the one-off gain of $9.0m from the disposal of available-for-sale financial assets, Raffles Education Corp’s (REC) 2QFY Jun12 results were slightly below our expectations. Net profit fell by 10% YoY to $3.5m, dragged down by other operating costs arising from property and land use tax expenses of $2.2m during the quarter. Despite the uninspiring results, interim dividend per share was raised to 0.5 cents from 0.45 cents last year.

China issues largely behind us. Revenue contracted by 13% YoY in 2QFY Jun12 in the absence of contributions from Shaanxi Electronic Information Institute and the 50%-owned Zhongfa College (via Value Vantage Pte Ltd). This was because REC had earlier sold its interests in these investments – 100% and 50% respectively. Though the group’s student enrolment numbers in China remained weak on account of changing demographics and more Chinese students pursuing education overseas, the rate of decline has at least moderated.