Stocks to watch: IJM Land, MRCB, Dialog, Talam

MRCB weekly chart

KUALA LUMPUR: Shares of IJM Land and MALAYSIAN RESOURCES CORP Bhd (MRCB) will be the stocks to watch on Monday, Jan 3 after their shares slid ahead of the negative news that the proposed merger had fallen through.

However, AmResearch said it was maintaining its BUY rating on both IJM Corp Bhd and IJM Land Bhd with unchanged fair values of RM7.52 a share and RM3.88 a share, respectively.

IJM Land weekly chart

“IJM Land was sold down (pre-suspension share price of RM2.86) this morning (Jan 30) prior to the announcement that the proposed merger with MRCB had been aborted. We are unfazed. The issue now is the relative investment merits of IJM Corp and IJM Land. We believe they have enough strong catalysts for them to move forward on their own,” AmResearch said in a research note after the announcement.

Other stocks which could be in focus on Monday include DIALOG GROUP BHD, Berjaya Corp Bhd, Talam Corp Bhd, RANHILL BHD and SilverBird Group Bhd.

Dialog’s subsidiary Dialog E&C Sdn Bhd has secured a RM64.6 million contract from Asean Bintulu Fertilizer Sdn Bhd (ABF) to build a cooling tower in Bintulu, Sarawak.

Dialog weekly chart

The scope of work would involve the engineering, procurement, CONSTRUCTION, commissioning and associated works of the new tower.

Berjaya Corp net profit for the second quarter ended Oct 31, 2010 jumped 66.9% to RM86.54 million from RM51.83 million a year ago.

The better performance was due mainly to write-back of impairment in value of investment in associated companies and gain on disposal/partial disposal of subsidiary companies as well as gain arising on accretion of interest in an associated company and lower finance costs.

BJCorp’s revenue for the quarter rose 6.2% to RM1.72 billion from RM1.62 billion in 2009. Earnings per share were 1.97 sen while net asset per share was RM1.39.

Talam posted net loss of RM83.29 million in the third quarter ended Oct 31, 2010 compared with net profit of RM118,000 a year ago, mainly due to losses on disposal of two parcels of development PROPERTIES totaling RM43.85 million and foresees a challenging remaining financial year for the group.

Talam weekly chart

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has placed its “B” long-term corporate credit rating of Ranhill Bhd on CreditWatch with negative implications. It also placed its B- issue rating on US$220 million 12.5% senior unsecured notes due October 2011 issued by Ranhill (L) Ltd on CreditWatch with negative implications.

SilverBird’s net profit for the fourth quarter ended Oct 31, 2010 rose 36.66% to RM835,000 from RM611,000 a year ago mainly due to the sales growth in its core business of consumer food division.

Revenue for the quarter rose 6.75% to RM153.92 million from RM144.19 million in 2009. Earnings per share were 0.22 sen while net assets per share were 53 sen.