Alliance Healthcare Group, which operates a chain of clinics, has been buying back shares. The most recent transaction was on March 29, when 60,000 shares were bought at 17.5 cents each. This brings the total number of shares bought back under the current mandate to 400,000.
Prior to this, Alliance Healthcare bought 100,000 shares on March 28; 70,000 shares on March 25; 100,000 on March 21; and 70,000 shares on March 18. The company paid the same 17.5 cents for these shares. At current levels, its share price is trading at a historical P/E ratio of around 15x.
Besides running clinics, the company, headed by executive chairman Dr Barry Thng Lip Mong, distributes drugs and provides managed healthcare administrative services.
In addition, it has been actively building new ways of delivering healthcare services via mobile platforms. “Our mobile healthcare segment continued to be one of the key drivers for growth, affirming our strategic direction to focus on expanding our mobile and digital healthcare segment,” says Thng.
“We believe digitalisation will continue to play an increasingly important role in the healthcare sector as it provides cost-effective, time-saving and quality healthcare for our patients. We remain committed to further enhancing our digital technology capabilities to remain in the forefront of an increasingly digitalised healthcare sector,” he adds.
For 1HFY2022 ended December 2021, the company reported earnings of $1.7 million, up 88.1% over the preceding 1HFY2021’s $0.9 million for the period ended December 2020. Revenue in the same period was up 23.8% y-o-y to $28.6 million.
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From PPE to renewable energy
Medtecs International, which was one of the hotter stocks around over the last couple of years, has on March 28 bought back 1.5 million shares at between 22 cents and 23 cents each. This marks the first buyback allowed under the current mandate.
The company makes and distributes personal protective equipment (PPE), which was in hot demand when the pandemic hit. Medtecs shares were similarly hot, surging from just four cents to as high as $1.85.
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Since then, with the earlier spike in demand for the company’s products somewhat waning and as selling prices softened, its share price has dropped to around 25 cents.
For FY2021 ended December 2021, the company recorded a revenue of US$144.2 million ($195.3 million), down 64% over the preceding FY2020’s US$400.3 million. Earnings dropped by 87% from US$131.7 million to US$17.3 million.
In its earnings commentary on March 1, Medtec notes that while the world is recovering from the pandemic, Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of healthcare products and that PPE and facemasks have become part of the norm in most countries as the world transitions into living with Covid-19.
Medtecs has been developing and selling its own brand of PPE products and is tapping online platforms as part of its overall push to sell directly to consumers.
In addition, the company has set up a joint venture in Cambodia to make gloves, which will help Medtecs diversify its product range. The plant is slated to start production in the first half of this year. The company expects to remain profitable this year.
Further down the road, Medtecs is mulling over a move into the renewable energy market as another growth driver, given the broader move towards sustainability.
The company is exploring investments in renewable energy together with external partners to meet the requests from its clients for more green manufacturing in the future. It is already evaluating the merits of solar power and energy storage services, including installation of solar panels in its existing factories.
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