Stocks to watch: S P Setia, TPC, Huat Lai, Wijaya Baru

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian stock market was battered on the first trading day in October, sending the FBM KLCI down 1.41% or 19.61 points to close at 1,367.52.

All key regional markets and European bourses fell after Greece's admission that it will miss its deficit targets for this year. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index tumbled 4.38%, Thailand’s SET Index down 5.12% and Jakarta’s Composite 5.64%.

OSK Research said “there is downside to the KLCI although with non-GLICs supposedly close to maximum cash levels and GLICs supposedly not aggressively supporting the market up till now, further downside maybe somewhat less than our recession market bottom of 1,086”.

The research house said it did not see any clear market moving catalyst from the Budget 2012 proposals, which would be announced on Friday.

Instead, it would focus on the 1,300 level, beyond which it would recommend more aggressive bottom fishing.

“Sticking to defensives for now and our September Top Buys which have outperformed the KLCI. Bottom fishing stocks such as Genting, Parkson and Dialog which will be attractive if the KLCI falls below 1,300,” it said.

Among the stocks to watch on Tuesday, Oct 4 following the fresh corporate developments are S P Setia Bhd, TPC PLUS BHD [], HUAT LAI RESOURCES BHD [] and WIJAYA BARU GLOBAL BHD [].

S P Setia Bhd plans to undertake a mixed township project with a gross development value of RM4 billion in Semenyih, Selangor.

Tthe development would be carried out on 673 acres of land which it is acquiring from Spektrum Megah (M) Sdn Bhd.

S P Setia said it had entered into a sale and purchase agreement with Spektrum Megah to acquire the 673.27 acres of freehold land out of the 737.87 acres in Semenyih, Ulu Langat, for RM381.259 million or RM13 per square foot.

Huat Lai Resources Bhd plans to launch a takeover offer of poultry company TPC Plus Bhd after it acquires a 33.65% stake in TPC from London Biscuit Bhd.

Huat Lai had signed a sale and purchase agreement with London Biscuit to acquire the stake, comprising 26.91 million TPC shares, for RM8.075 million or an average 30 sen a share. The share price rose 2.5 sen to close at 27 sen.

Wijaya Baru is making its foray into Indonesia’s logging sector with the proposed acquisition of two companies for US$80 million or RM255.2 million which have logging rights in Papua, which it planned to later venture into oil palm cultivation.

OCTAGON CONSOLIDATED BHD [] has awarded a US$22 million (RM70.18 million) contract to KNM GROUP BHD [] to build an advanced thermal gasification reactor.

Octagon said its unit Green Energy and TECHNOLOGY [] Sdn Bhd (GreenTech) had sealed a contract with KNM Process Systems Sdn Bhd for the reactor. The contractor would undertake the manufacturing, engineering, installation and pre-commission of the reactor.