HARTALEGA Holdings Bhd posted a 885% jump in its net profit for its 4Q FY3/2021 ended March 31, 2021 to RM 1.12 bil (4Q FY3/2020: RM114.28 mil) while its revenue during the period under review surged 195% to RM2.3 bil (4Q FY3/2020: RM778.24 mil).
For its entire FY3/2021, the glove maker raked in a net profit of RM2.9 bil or 568% higher than RM434.4 mil in the same period of the previous financial year. Its revenue for the whole of FY3/2021 stood at RM6.7 bil as against RM2.92 bil in FY3/2020.
Hartalega attributed its strong performance for the year primarily to significantly higher sales revenue, driven by higher average selling prices and increased sales volume although this was partially affected in the fourth quarter due to the temporary disruption in the global container supply chain.
Earnings per share (EPS) for the fourth quarter grew to 32.75 sen while for the full financial year, EPS improved to 84.43 sen. Its net assets per share stood at RM1.45 as of end-March this year.
As a result of the group’s strong performance, Hartalega has declared a third interim single tier dividend of 17.70 sen/share for its financial year ended March 31, 2021 with the entitlement date on May 24 while the dividend is payable on June 9.
This will bring total dividends to date for the entire financial year to 31.20 sen/share.
“While vaccination programmes have commenced, countries across the world have unfortunately seen new waves of COVID-19 cases, particularly in India, South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia,” commented Hartalega’s CEO Kuan Mun Leong.
“As such, global demand for medical supplies, including nitrile gloves, is expected to remain elevated.”
Kuan expects heightened demand growth to be further driven by the structural step-up in demand on the back of increased glove usage from emerging markets with low glove consumption per capita and increased hygiene awareness.
To further support Malaysia’s fight against the CVOID-19 pandemic, Hartalega has contributed RM90 mil to the Government’s COVID-19 Fund in February this year.
On expansion plan, Kuan noted that Plants 1 to 6 of its Next Generation Integrated Glove Manufacturing Complex (NGC) have been fully completed with the company having commissioned six out of 10 lines for Plant 7 which will have an annual installed capacity of 2.7 billion pieces of gloves once fully completed.
Construction of its next expansion phase of the NGC 1.5 is also underway which will see the addition of four production plants contributing 19 billion pieces of gloves to Hartalega’s annual installed capacity.
“This will see the group’s annual installed capacity increase to 63 billion pieces over the next two to three years,” added Kuan.
At 2.58pm, Hartalega was up 5 sen or 0.50% to RM9.93 with 8.72 million shares traded, thus valuing the company at RM33.93 bil. – May 4, 2021
