IN the quest to put his money where his mouth is, it is astonishing how Berjaya Corp Bhd’s (BCorp) new skipper Abdul Jalil Abdul Rasheed has converted many ‘BCorp haters’ to ‘BCorp fans’ in such a short time span since his coming on board the diversified conglomerate.
As if to further drive his exuberance, Jalil has acquired another 66 million shares between March 29 and 30, according to the latest Bursa Malaysia filing, thus raising ownership to 136 million shares or a 2.72% stake in the family-controlled group.
Of the total shares, 10 million shares were acquired from the open market while the balance of 56 million shares were acquired via direct business transaction.
On the same filing day, BCorp noted that its founder and executive chairman Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun has disposed 40 million of his direct interest in the company (leaving his existing interest at 25.12%).
Altogether, Jalil has forked out RM42 mil for his 2.7% stake in BCorp (RM19.6 mil was spent on the first tranche of 70 million shares acquired on March 24).
Even against the backdrop of a bearish Bursa Malaysia (the FBM KLCI dipped 2.22% to 1,573.51), BCorp bucked the trend by climbing 6 sen or 15,19% yesterday (March 31) to 45.5 sen to be yet again the day’s volume topper with 576.86 million shares exchanged hands.
Given that BCorp was languishing at 18 sen prior to Jalil’s appointment as the group CEO on March 16, the stock has actually added 153%.
As of 9.22am, BCorp has retained its upward momentum, adding a further 2 sen or 4.4% to 47.5 sen with 157.14 million shares traded, this valuing the company at RM2.5 bil (the stock has earlier touched an intraday high of 50.5 sen, a price not seen since mid-2018).
Jalil alongside his predecessor Datuk Seri Robin Tan Yeong Ching and Vincent Tan are supposed to converge an executive committee, who together with the contributions of fellow BCorp board members, will determine all strategic decision making and planning the future business direction of the BCorp group.
“The new appointments were made to transform BCorp into an institutionalised corporation, managed by professionals,” envisaged BCorp with regard to Jalil’s appointment.
“Jalil’s mandate will be to re-look at BCorp’s corporate structure, optimise financial and human resources, improve synergies and efficiency, enhance corporate governance and transparency, streamline the various Group businesses to create and enhance shareholder value and to transform BCorp into a high performing organisation.” – April 1, 2021
