Lenny Limanto, a substantial shareholder of Geo Energy Resources, saw a significant cut in her stake in the coal miner. On Jan 27, Cheng Xin Investment, which holds Limanto’s stake, sold 20 million shares for $7.14 million, which works out to an average price of 35.7 cents for each unit.
On Feb 18, Cheng Xin Investment sold another tranche of nearly 11.6 million shares for $4.64 million. The price works out to around 40.1 cents for each unit. With the sales, Limanto’s deemed stake has been cut from nearly 123.8 million shares or 8.79% to just over 92.2 million shares or 6.55%.
In contrast, Geo Energy on Dec 15, 2021, started a share buyback programme as a buoyant coal market flushed its balance sheet with cash. The most recent purchase was on Jan 20 when the company bought back 100,000 shares at 33 cents each, bringing the total number of shares bought back to 11.9 million units.
The company had earlier guided that it will be reporting record earnings for its 4QFY2021 ended December 2021 as global supply chain issues and resumption of demand in coal and other commodities driving up prices.
Another company which continued with its share buyback programme was StarHub. Most recently on Feb 23, the telco acquired 221,000 shares at $1.27 each. This brought the total number of shares bought back under the current mandate to more than 2.95 million.
On Feb 21 and Feb 18, the company had acquired 300,000 shares each on both days at a price of $1.28 each. On Feb 22, it again acquired 900,000 shares at prices ranging between $1.28 to $1.29 each.
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On Feb 21, the telco announced it had won back the rights to broadcast the English Premier League for six years, including all 380 matches in the coming season. StarHub will reveal the full pricing details in June.
On Feb 11, StarHub announced earnings for FY2021 ended Dec 31, 2021, was $149.3 million, down 5.5% over FY2020. However, if the wage subsidies received in FY2020 were excluded, the company’s earnings would have improved by 17%.
The company guides that it will be front-loading more capital expenditure this current FY2022 and that margins will be reduced as a result. However, investors can expect margins to then improve to at least 23% in FY2023 from at least 20% in FY2022.
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StarHub plans to pay a total FY2021 dividend of 6.4 cents per share, and is guiding to pay at least 5 cents for FY2022 and FY2023.
Silverlake Axis, which sells software to financial services firms, has been buying back its shares too. The most recent was on Feb 22 when it acquired 832,400 shares for 29.12 cents each. This brings its total shares bought under the current mandate to 1.43 million units. Earlier on Feb 21 and Feb 18, the company had acquired a total of 600,000 shares at 30 cents each.
On Feb 14, the company reported earnings of RM94.7 million ($30.43 million) for its 1HFY2021 ended December 2021, up 40% y-o-y. Revenue was up 16% y-o-y to RM358.5 million, led by higher software licensing revenue.
The company sees an “encouraging” 2HFY2022 and beyond, citing its resilient business model. “We are cautiously optimistic of the group’s prospects over the medium to long term with a robust pipeline of opportunities being evaluated and the conversion has been encouraging,” says managing director Andrew Tan.
For the FY2022 ending June 30, more than RM300 million worth of new contracts have been closed, “far exceeding” the same time for both FY2020 and FY2021.
Photo caption: Coal prices have been driven up by supply chain disruptions / Photo by Dominik Vanyi on Unsplash
