AJINOMOTO EGM 2026 (privatization offer RM20/share)

Today I attended the AGM and EGM of Ajinomoto Malaysia Berhad. This could be the last AGM of AJI, if the privatization offer is approved by minority shareholders today.

This is the first EGM I have attended so far concerning on the privatization of a listed company. The Chairman has invited two ladies from Maybank and RHB investment banks to present the valuation report of AJI in order to let shareholders aware on the "intrinsic value" of AJI.

Indeed, I have learnt something new today. 

The investment bank analyst mentioned that for those companies that make consistent profit (e.g. AJI), the PE method (Price/Earning Per Share) is the most suitable metric. Therefore, the PE method was used as the primary method to value AJI, followed by the secondary method, which is EV/EBITDA. EV is the Enterprise Value = Market Capital + Total Borrowings - Cash, whereas EBITDA is Earning Before Interest, Tax and Depreciation and Amortization.

The investment bank has worked out the fair PE and fair EV/EBITDA metrics for AJI, by letting the fair metrics of AJI as the average PE and EV/EBITDA values of other listed companies in F&B sector. To be honest, I do not agree on this method, as these companies are operating in a different business segment compared to AJI. For example, if NESTLE is considered as one of the F&B companies in the averaging calculation, the average PE metric would go up definitely, as NESTLE is always traded in sky-high PE value given its market dominance. Personally, I still prefer to make use of the market-given PE values of a specific company for various years, and take the average (or median) of them to get a somewhat "fair" PE value for a company. 

In fact, the offer price of RM20/share is absolutely attractive for me, given the fact that the PE and EV/EBITDA at RM20 have already exceeded the market-given "fair" values of AJI, at least based on the current earning level. For me, the offer RM 20/share could have factored in the future growth of AJI in upcoming years.

A few shareholders (including a rep from MSWG)  have voiced up to the Chairman that they will reject the offer as the investment bank's comment on the offer price is: Unfair but reasonable. MSWG will only accept if the comment is fair and reasonable. Another veteran Chinese shareholder shared a very interesting analogy. He said that he once has a property called "AJI". If he owns it, he can still rent it out to get the rental fee (i.e. dividend). If he sells it, he gets the capital gain, but he will not get any future dividends. He said that AJI's dividend yield is very high, so it is worth to keep. Honestly, I am puzzled when he said AJI's dividend is high (coz AJI's dividend yield is merely 2% - 3%). So, please do not blindly believe on what other people said.

Anyway, after the voting session, 92% of disinterested shareholders (non-AJICO shareholders) have voted to accept the offer. 

Good bye AJI... And thank you...

YSPSAH Q2-2026 result

 

Let us have a look on the Q2-2026 quarter report released by YSPSAH.

Both the quarter revenue and quarter reported profit jump yoy. While the revenue jump yoy is mainly derived from stronger overseas sales (particularly from Vietnam, Cambodia and Africa), the reported profit jump yoy is mainly attributed to the very weak reported profit in Q2-2025 due to forex loss (during that time, USD is weakening against MYR as Fed reduces interest rate in the US). Recall that YSPSAH's ~30% of revenue is derived from overseas. So, weak USD will drag the reported net profit, as YSPSAH needs to report on the unrealized forex loss. Meaning to say, they still keep the USD received from customer (without converting to MYR). But the value (in terms of MYR) of the USD received is getting lesser -- > so unrealized forex loss.

As I always mention, the reported profit is quite misleading due to non-cash items. Unrealized forex loss is one of the non-cash items. So, it is better to look into the core profit instead. The calculation of core profit would require more work:

From the table above, I purpose highly the foreign exchange item to highlight the remarkable forex loss experienced by YSPSAH in Q2-2025 of ~ RM 7.135 million. The Management tends to combine both realized and unrealized forex loss here. When doing core profit calculation, I tend to consider only the unrealized forex part. Unfortunately, unlike their annual report, the quarter report of YSPSAH does not provide further info on the unrealized forex. But, according to my study, YSPSAH's realized forex part is less significant as compared to the unrealized forex part.

Let us do the core profit calculation as follow:

Q2 2026  (number in '000):

Core profit = reported profit + Adjustment 

Reported profit  = RM4262

Adjustment = + RM 833 (only consider forex part here)

So, core profit = RM 4262 + RM 833 = RM 5095 (number in '000)

Q2 2025  (number in '000):

Core profit = reported profit + Adjustment 

Reported profit  = RM 746

Adjustment = + RM 7135 (only consider forex part here)

So, core profit = RM 746+ RM 7135 = RM 7881 (number in '000)

So, for core profit wise, Q2 2026 is weaker than Q2 2025 !

What has went wrong in this quarter?

If you look at the table above, you would notice that a few categories are highlighted in RED. Did you see that items like cost of sales (raw material cost), selling expenses and admin expenses all went up during Q2 2026?  I believe the surge of selling & admin expenses is due to higher logistic and distribution cost due to Iran war, as YSPSAH needs to export the drugs to other countries. So, more logistic cost is required, and this is understandable during the current condition. However, what has puzzled me is the cost of sales, which is increased by 13.6% (while revenue increases by 8.5% only). By right, as USD is weakening, YSPSAH needs to fork out lesser MYR to buy the API (raw material), which would contribute to lesser cost of sales right? Or, perhaps the cost of API (in terms of USD) has increased even sharper?? I am not too sure though...  Nevertheless, weak USD would translate to lesser MYR received as well, so Management may need to adjust the USD pricing of those exported drugs upward to protect the gross profit margin. Perhaps the adjusted pricing is not sufficient to cover the increased API cost?

So, my conclusion is the weak Q2-2026 result is due to increased cost.

How about DPHARMA, which mainly focuses on domestic sales (> 90 % local)?

Cost of Sales / Revenue %

In general, YSPSAH recorded lower Cost of sales / Revenue % as compared to DPHARMA. Normally, when USD is getting stronger against MYR (hence weaker MYR), DPHARMA would suffer due to high input cost (see FY 2023). However, as USD is weakening nowadays (after Fed cuts rate), the gross profit margin of DPHARMA would increase again. For YSPSAH, they practice natural hedging, so the currency fluctuation does not matter much. The only caveat is the highly fluctuating reported earning (due to unrealized forex loss/gain), where most investors do not like to see.

Admin Expenses / Revenue %

In general, YSPSAH recorded lower Admin expenses / Revenue % as compared to DPHARMA. However, do note that DPHARMA is getting more efficient now in terms of admin cost management, and the ratio is almost on par with YSPSAH.

Sales and Distribution Expenses / Revenue %

DPHARMA spends less in terms of distribution cost (relative to its revenue) as compared to YSPSAH, which I believe so because DPHARMA focuses mainly on local market. Lesser logistic effort is required as compared to YSPSAH.

Core Profit Margin %

While YSPSAH core profit margin is better than DPHARMA from FY2022 to FY 2025, the two recent quarters in FY 2026 (Q2 2026 in particular) have witnessed weaker core profit margin as compared to DPHARMA. I believe it is due to the elevated input and logistic costs experienced by YSPSAH.

Conclusion

Indeed, investing in YSPSAH really test one's patience. Frankly, I have made a wrong move in FY 2023 by buying quite a lot of YSPSAH shares after I noticed that there is a huge capex being spent (RM 31 M to buy a factory + land from Onkio Electronics). Now, this property is merely used for warehouse purpose... So, do not invest only based on huge capex being spent. We must make sure the capex can be used to generate profit for shareholders.

Fortunately, there is a growth story of YSPSAH recently. Management is ready to run the new injection plant II at the end of FY 2026, which is constructed in its current manufacturing facility. This new injection plant II is used to support the older manufacturing facility which is not working properly. According to the management, once the new injection plant II is running, the older manufacturing facility will be renovated.

All the best, YSPSAH!!

Passion fruit & share investment

This morning, my wife went to Kepong Baru wet market to buy groceries. I was at home, taking care of my two girls. 

She phoned me and asked me about the passion fruits sold by a guy. She wished to know whether it is cheap or not coz. I bought the fruits from that guy before. The price tag is RM 18/kg. I told her that it is expensive. Two days ago, it was RM 10/kg, sold by the same guy.

As usual, my wife will look at the price before she buy anything. A very nice and thrifty girl.. 

In fact, my wife invests in share market as well. She always look at the share price of the company of interest, and check whether the price tag is cheap or not, by merely examining the historical share price of the company. Not only my wife, my colleagues with a PhD degree would do that as well. 

Price tag is important in investment, not doubt about that. 

But, the other key aspect when coming to investing is the value and growth prospect of a company. A good company (e.g. better future earnings, etc.) can create better values, hence it deserves a higher price tag (e.g. share price). Thankfully, the investment world has come up with a yardstick to "measure" whether a company is cheap or not, by combining both value and price tag, termed as Price to Earning Ratio (PER). In other words, to know whether a good company is traded at cheap or expensive level, we just have to compare its current PER value with respect to its historical PER values.

Remember:

We have to compare its current PER value with respect to its historical PER values, NOT to compare its current share price with respect to its historical share price.

Of course, apart from PER, there are many other yardsticks such as dividend yield, Price to Book Ratio, etc. But, the PER method is the most common one.

I told my wife about the above method. She just smile, and never practice it. She said she got no time to dig out the info. But she go time to navigate FB, youtube, etc... haha.

Sometimes, I think passion is the key to be successful in investment. To be frank, not many peoples are passionate about the fundamental in value investing, as value investing is a tiring job. We have to gather historical financial data, analyze them, predict the future business prospect, and performing valuation on a company. 

But, there is no free lunch in this world right? To be rich, we have to work. Of course, working as a normal employee would never make us rich. We have to work smart --> and share market is one of the smart ways. I believe the effort we put into analyzing financial data is really worthwhile, as it could generate a massive amount of wealth if we do it the right way, which is hardly (or never) achievable by working as a normal employee.

My wife is very stressful in her company, having to deal with her problematic colleagues and tons of workloads. And yet, her salary is not equivalent to the amount of effort that she has put in. I believe many others are facing the same problems.

I hope my wife would soon realize the importance of investing and gain her passion in investment in one day.

So do my two little girls......

AGM for FY 2025 - 21 May 2026 (Tropicana Golf and Country Club)

 

Yesterday, I attended the 17th AGM of Focus Point Berhad together with my wife. Once we have registered our names at the counter, each of us is given a goodie bag, with 3 pastries (KOMUGI brand) + 1 dry-eye wrapper inside the bag. The quality of the bag is not bad indeed.

After registration, as usual, we are invited to enjoy the breakfast served beside the Ballroom. Foods served are nasi lemak, fried "lao shu fen (老鼠粉)" and Komugi pastries. I saw many uncle-auntie tapao back those pastries... The taste of the food served is better than that of YSPSAH's AGM held one day before. 

Besides food, there is a eye-screening counter beside the breakfast venue. The eye-screening machine is called AI-doc, which could help to diagnose disease such as hypertension, glaucoma (青光眼), diabetes, cholesterol, etc. from a simple eye screening (1-2 minutes). The staff claimed that it is > 90% accurate. Take note that if you do this AI-doc screening from Focus Point outlet, they would charge you RM 60 per screening if I am not mistaken. But as a shareholder attending the AGM, we can get our eyes screened for free.... A detailed eye screening report will be sent to our email box as well, after the on-site explanation from the optometrists.

          

The AGM started at 10 am sharp.

In fact, I did not prepare any questions to the Board, as I am satisfied with their performance in general. Optical segment (except F&B) is growing, good dividends, generous dividend policy, apa nak complaint lagi right? 

I saw a familiar guy during the AGM. He is James Hay, a fund manager from Pangolin Fund. Wow... he started to look into this company already. I saw him before during the DKSH AGM held last week. Indeed, his investment pattern is similar as mine, looking into undervalued and good company.... Buffet-gang...

He posted a lot of questions to the Board. One of his questions that grasped my attention is the membership of Golf club. He questioned why this membership is there? Any relevancy? The Board said that the membership is open for the Directors, as well as business discussion with vendors and customers. 

Another Indian shareholder also questioned the Board on why there are overlapping resolutions. For example, there is a resolution that propose share-buy-back. At the same time, there are another resolutions revolving around Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRP) and allot/grant shares. The Management mentioned that these resolutions are proposed just to give them flexibility to execute one of them whenever necessary.

I also ask one question to the Board at the end of the session, questioning on the synergy behind the optical and F&B businesses. Datuk President mentioned that it is purely for diversification purpose. I told him that I could not find a big crowd in Komugi Mid-valley as compared to other outlets like Aeon Bakery, Lavender, etc. He agreed with me. The CFO mentioned to me that they will focus on cost control and expand the B2B F&B business.

We left the AGM around 11 AM after voting.

YSPSAH Q1-2026 result

 

YSPSAH just released the Q1-FY2026 result a few days ago. Both revenue and profit attributed to shareholders drop yoy. Let us find out the reason from its quarter report.

Picture below shows the segregation of sales from various countries. Obviously, there is a drop in sales from Malaysia (= RM4.5 M). According to the Management, this is due to the drop in revenue from government hospital. Indeed, government hospital would look into cost first during any medication tender. This does not align with the YSPSAH marketing strategy, which is aiming to provide better service so that they could sell the products at slightly higher price.

Interestingly, there is a huge jump in sales in "Other countries" segment. I need to find out more on this.

Now, it is time to work out the core earning (earning from core business i.e. manufacturing and selling of generic drugs, OTC products) of this quarter.

Starting from the reported earning of RM 9.595 M, we adjust the earning based on the table below to get the core earning.

After adjustment, the core earning for Q1 2026 is RM 16.836 M (vs. Q1 2025 of RM 16.939 M).

As a conclusion, the core earning of Q1 2026 is at par with that of Q1 2025, a slight drop in fact, due to slowdown in local sales.

YSPSAH 2026 AGM, Bangi Resort Hotel

I attend the AGM of YSPSAH held at Bangi Resort Hotel with my wife today. After all, YSPSAH is my second largest shareholding in my portfolio. Hence, I keep track of this company closely.

We depart from our home at 8:30 AM and arrive at the venue around 9:37 AM. The traffic is terrible.

As I am late for the meeting, I rush into the ballroom after I reach the venue. I ask my wife to park the car for me as I worry that I might miss the Q&A session. 

I got no time to take picture as well.

There is no financial result briefing from the Board, as usual. As soon as I enter the Ballroom, the Q&A session started.

I have a chance to post my questions as well. This is the summary that I have obtained.

• The prepayment of plant and equipment (RM 19.9 M) is meant for the new injection plant.
• Dr. Lee (MD) said that the new injection plant II will be ready by this year. Then, they will renovate the old injection plant. The management planned to build a line that can handle large batch size.
• A shareholder mentioned that the product of YSPSAH is priced lower than competitor according to his survey. Nevertheless, Dr. Lee denied that and mentioned that his product is always priced higher than others (coz. better servicing). 
• Dr. Lee mentioned that YSPSAH focuses mainly on private hospital, clinics and pharmacies. They market their products via building physical relations with customers to have good bonding with them (to build trust). Sometimes customers prefer to buy from YSPSAH as delivery is faster. However, for customers at some countries like Cambodia, they need an agent to help them coz it is too far.
• A shareholder mentioned to me that YSPSAH is amongst the top sales company within the private healthcare sector.
• Dr. Lee mentioned that the company revenue hardly grows since FY2024 because customers have frontloaded the medications during post-covid period. Plus, there is a upgrade in the operating facilities at Bangi plant (some old machines in the old injection plant is not functioning), hindering them to take more orders.

The Board gave each shareholder 1+1 door gift (SHINE brand supplements, consisting of probiotics, calcium pill, Vitamin pill). Why 1+1?? There is a shareholder requesting for extra supplement to be given out to each shareholder because there are many extra door gifts as many shareholders did not attend the meeting. Below is the door gift from YSPSAH during the AGM:

Meals include nasi goreng kampung, fried wanton, pastry and fruits. Taste so-so.. My wife ate only the pastry.

Overall, the Board has answered all my questions. I passed the marketing stretegies of Dr. Lee to Google AI and the AI told me this:

The management’s logic is based on a classic business trade-off: you cannot be the cheapest option and the highest-service option at the same time.

By avoiding government tenders, YSPSAH frees up the cash and resources needed to fund their expensive, high-touch private sector strategy.

Here is the direct linkage between the two decisions:

1. The Cost vs. Service Linkage

• Government Tenders Demand Low Costs: Government contracts are won by bidding the absolute lowest price per pill. To survive on these razor-thin margins, a company must cut all extra costs. They cannot afford to spend money on a large sales force or fast, customized delivery fleets.
• The Private Sector Demands Premium Service: Private clinics and pharmacies are willing to pay a higher price for medications if it means they get immediate delivery, flexible credit terms, and face-to-face relationship management.
• The Strategic Link: If YSPSAH lowered its prices to win government tenders, it would lose the profit margins needed to pay for the fast delivery and physical relationship building that the private sector expects.

2. The Resource Allocation Linkage

• A Dedicated Sales Fleet: Building physical relationships requires hiring, training, and fueling a massive team of sales representatives to visit thousands of individual clinics.
• A Rapid Delivery Fleet: Providing fast delivery requires decentralized warehouses, local delivery drivers, and advanced tracking logistics.
• The Strategic Link: Government buyers do not care about sales rep visits or 24-hour delivery; they buy in bulk months in advance. If YSPSAH spent its budget bidding on government tenders, it would not have the capital to invest in the sales reps and delivery trucks needed to win over private doctors.

Summary

The management is choosing margin over volume. They are walking away from low-profit government volume so they can reinvest their money into superior service, allowing them to charge premium prices to private clients.

DKSH AGM 13 MAY 2026

Today I attend the AGM of DKSH Malaysia. I drive there after fetching my daughter to tuition center at around 0830. It took me almost 1 hour to reach the venue (Tropicana Golf Club, usual AGM venue for DKSH) via LDP, as the traffic at LDP is very congested...

I reach Tropicana Golf Club at around 0930. After registration, the counter staff gave me 2 meal vouchers (breakfast & lunch). You have to use these vouchers to claim for your meals later.

When I attended the AGM 2-3 years ago, I was given a goodie bag, with a box of Ferrero Roche chocolate, a tub of Buttercup, etc. inside the bag. No door gift is given on this year though, kinda disappointed haha. I have agreed to treat my daughters a few Ferrero Roche chocolate balls. It looks like they would be disappointed tonight..

The breakfast is, as usual, nasi lemak. Taste so-so.. I discarded the carrot cake coz. it is very sweet. Drinks such as lemon water, etc. are served as well. I didn't take them though because I bring my own water.

At 10 AM sharp, the meeting begins. The chairman is a Korean, Mr. Oh. He speaks fluent English with American assent. The executive director (CEO?) and CFO are Indians., and they are accompanied by a few non-executive directors on the stage.

If you follow the company closely, you would notice that DKSH did very well in FY 2025. I did not prepare any questions to the Board coz. the company's business is growing. Plus, my shareholding in DKSH is quite small after disposing most of my DKSH shares after the take-over announcement is made (foreseeing that the bid would fail as Pangolin has publicly rejected the offer). As expected, the take-over bid is a failure after minority shareholders rejected the offer during the EGM held a month ago.

Coming to the 1st agenda of the AGM, i.e. the financial statement of DKSH. 

The war begins.....

The first question was given by a representative from Pangolin Fund. I guess he is James Hay, the Director of Pangolin Fund. He pointed out why the Management decided not to pay dividend for FY 2025, although the financial numbers look promising. In fact, this was my concern too as already mentioned in my previous post in DKSH. After knowing that DKSH decided NOT to pay dividend for FY 2025, I further trimmed my shareholdings in DKSH immediately. But, for a big fund like Pangolin, it is quite difficult for them to sell their shares in open market just like me.. When your fund grows bigger, I start to realize that it is NOT easy at all to manage the fund, especially if the fund is used to invest in undervalued but out-of-favor stocks such as DKSH. Therefore, I am quite surprised that Pangolin Fund has invested in DKSH although its liquidity is rather limited. Nevertheless, I respect James, as he is truly a value investor, unlike those fund managers that like to chase hot themes.

Soon after James posted his questions, other shareholders started to post a similar question again to the Board. Overall, the main concern of the shareholder is about why the dividend is not given to shareholders although the company did very well last year. Free cash flow is positive, growing profit, good ROE, etc... all these should lead to higher dividend being paid out!! Instead, the Management decided not to pay dividend.. What on earth is happening? Their reasons given are the company wants to use the cash to reduce debt, to serve as working capital in future expansion activities, to cope with the current uneven market condition (due to Iran war), etc.... However, we do note that DKSH is operating in a high gearing mode all this while, and DKSH is able to weather through the even more challenging crisis such as COVID-19, why only now DKSH decided to sacrifice the dividends to reduce their debt? A 70-year-old shareholder compared DKSH vs Nestle, saying that Nestle is giving out most of its profits as dividends, unlike DKSH. To be fair, I think the shareholder should not use Nestle as an example coz. the business models of Nestle and DKSH are different. Instead, another FMCG distributor such as HARISON is more suitable, and HARISON is able to pay dividend to shareholders consistently.

At least 3 shareholders bombarded the Board from the floor just now about the dividend issue, citing the fact that the Executive Director has enjoyed a pay rise, but nothing is given back to the shareholder. In fact, I agree with the shareholder as well. Before that, I tend to emphasize on buying undervalued listed  companies in Malaysia as long as their profit growth in on track, regardless of whether they are paying dividends or not. I noticed that if those companies are in technological sector (or in other hot sectors such as Renewal Energy, solar, etc.), they would still be able to attract tremendous buying interest from the public (hence shareholders can enjoy capital gain, no dividend though). However, if those companies are in non-sexy (or traditional sector), sorry to say, public would tend to abandon those counters, unless the dividend is great. This could explain why DKSH share price is so cheap even though the company is growing. The answer is, obviously, subpar dividend being distributed to shareholder. Worse still, no dividend is declared for FY 2025 due to the somewhat unacceptable reasons given by the Board.

Anyway, as minor shareholders, we have no say on the Board's decision. We have to accept it reluctantly though. However, we do have many other investment choices. If the claim made by one of the shareholders, i.e. the dividend is NOT paid because the largest DKSH shareholder intends to punish the minor shareholders for rejecting the take-over bid so that the share price is depressed and hence they could buy back more shares via the 3rd party, is true, then I would be very disappointed on the Company. I am not sure whether it is classified as market manipulation? Have to find out..

For the time being, I will just keep my existing DKSH shareholding, and eyeing other undervalued counters that are abandoned by the market.

After voting, I took my lunch box and leave around 12 PM. 

It is Spaghettis.... 

SKB Shutters

I commute using MRT to work since 2024.

Today, as usual, I go to MRT Jinjang Station as I need to work in my office near Kajang today. I reach the station quite early. As I am so bored there, I spend time wandering around the station, and I see this:

Baby changing room

There are plenty of fire-rated doors made by SKB around the MRT Jinjang station, including the staff room (customer service) room door, telecommunication riser room door, hose riser room door, fire exit doors and many others. Pls see below.

Fire Exit

AFC Equipment (for auto-ticketing gate control)

Telecommunication riser 

Customer Service Room

Hose Reel and Dry Riser

Surau

Retail shop

System riser

At MRT Kajang station, I saw the SKB-made roller shutter near a warung makan (next to KTM Kajang entrance). My daughter likes to purchase sweet corn from this warung when she follows me to my office. This roller shutter is located between the walkway from carpark to KTM Kajang (see below). By the way, KTM Kajang entrance is just next to MRT Kajang exit.

In fact, I have purchased small quantities of shares of SKB Shutters (SKBSHUT) last year (2 Oct 2025) around RM 0.9+ when it reported a record high Q4 FY2025 profit. Its PER during that time is < 10, and I believe this company should be sold at the level of 10x PER at least, considering its dividend yield of almost 7%. However, after I purchased the shares, the share price plummets, lol... 

Am I making a wrong investment decision?

Let us analyze this company fundamentally.

Business background

SKBSHUT is focusing on manufacturing fire-rated doors, metal doors (for data center, which drives high margin, 35% of revenue), racking system (20% - 23% of total revenue), roller shutters (35% of revenue), etc. The boss of this company, Mr. Sin, is a mechanical engineer graduated from Taiwan. He is a very innovative engineer and entrepreneur, holding many patents for his design of roller shutter and steel-related products.

SKBSHUT will soon operate in a new, larger factory in Puncak Alam. The company has allocated huge capex for this purpose in FY2025, see below:

I have found the fire doors made by this company in various MRT stations, including MRT Jinjang, MRT Kajang, Ikano Power Center. According to the Management, "the metal door in data center could drive even higher margin as these doors are quite special and need to follow certain specifications/requirements. According to the Management, there are several notable competitors in the region, including those from Germany, China, and Malaysia. Locally, while there are a handful of competitors, SKB is currently the largest in terms of scale." --> Quoted from the MoM FY2025

I believe the moat of this company is that it is able to produce products that can meet stringent safety and regulatory requirements. Mr. Sin is a forward looking entrepreneur (and capable engineer) and able to design products to cater for future needs. As quoted from their MoM 2025:

"Innovation is the key driver of SKB’s growth. A strong example is the Insulated Fire Shutter. Even before it was made compulsory, SKB had already undertaken nearly five years of R&D. It took time for the product to be tested and certified, but when the market eventually mandated its use, SKB was wellpositioned as a first mover with a competitive advantage."

"SKB was the first in the market to achieve an Insulated Fire Shutter, tested to provide four hours thermal insulation and four hours fire integrity in 2015. That year, SKB had already introduced the product to the market, which later proved advantageous when authorities made it compulsory. Since then, the market has had the option to choose between Uninsulated and Insulated Fire Shutters. In 2021, Insulated Fire Shutter became a mandatory requirement, and this was reflected positively in the Company’s financial results."

Financial background

Let us examine the financial aspect of this company.

By looking at the historical record of its profit trend, undoubtedly, it is a growing company. Except in FY 2020, the net profit has been increasing consistently especially from FY 2023 onwards. The most notable growth is in FY2025 as the company has recorded the highest profit margin of around 19% as SKB had a higher concentration of high-margin products in FY 2025.

I believe the main raw material of SKBSHUT is steel. So, the steel price is plotted in tandem with the gross profit margin. In general, the gross profit margin of SKBSHUT is quite consistent at the level of 20%-25% even during the surge of steel price in year 2021-2022. The recent gross profit margin surges to almost 40% as the steel price normalizes after its peak in 2021.

It is appealing to note that its ROE has been uptrending since FY 2017, and the company has achieved ROE of more than 12% since 2023.

The company has been generating positive operating cash flow since FY 2017, which is a good sign. However, huge capex are incurred in both FY 2017 and FY 2025. In FY 2017, the capex is allocated for the acquisition of land of the existing office and factory at Kota Damansara. In FY 2025, however, the capex is mainly for constructing the new plant in Puncak Alam which is expected to be ready between June-September 2026 (from the Minutes of Meeting 2025 AGM). The new plant is estimated to provide between 50% and 60% more than the current facility.

Despite huge capex in FY 2025, the company is able to generate free cash flow (FCF) per share of RM 0.07. In the same financial year, it has declared its dividend of RM 0.065.

Valuation

Despite its strong balance sheet and good business prospect, it is trading at single digit PER multiple. Have a look on the PER trend of SKBSHUT below. 

The reasons that I could think of are:

(1) Low liquidity: Most fund managers would avoid investing in company with low liquidity. Nevertheless, from its Annual Report 2025, there are a few funds that have invested in SKB, e.g. 

EPF (2.9 %), 

MANULIFE INVESTMENT SHARIAH PROGRESS PLUS FUND (0.326%), 

MANULIFE FLEXI INVEST FUND (0.254 %),  

PHEIM EMERGING COMPANIES BALANCED FUND (0.241 %). 

I believe these funds are holding the company for long-term. There are 73% of shares currently held by top 30 shareholders. 

(2) Inconsistent dividend payout: Currently, I guess the Management has been focusing on allocating budgets for running the new plant more than paying dividends to shareholders. The management did not declare any dividend in the most recent Q2 FY2026 quarter despite achieving good profit (unlike during Q2 FY2025 where 4 cents dividend was declared). A closer look into Q2 FY2026 reveals that the company FCF is negative currently because a huge capex of RM 26 M was allocated. Therefore, it is justified that no dividend is declared. I personally do not wish to see that a company borrows to pay dividend just to "please" the shareholders.

(3) Cyclic business (somewhat): Its end customers are mainly from construction sector, a cyclical industry.

If we simply take the most recent 5 year median/mean PER of SKB, it gives us the number 6.3. Multiplied 6.3 by the trailing 4Q EPS of RM 0.16, it gives us the fair value of SKB at RM 1.0 roughly.

For me, such a low PE multiple of 6.3 is really unjustified for such a solid and growing company (for me). There are many companies out there that are financially weaker than SKB and yet they are traded at significantly high PER just because of they are operating in a "hot and sexy" segment. But what to do, this is share market, short-term traders outnumbers long-term investors by a huge margin. Those short term traders would "vote" for those hot counters definitely as they could earn fast money within days.

As a conclusion, I do hope that the Management will reward shareholders once more profit is made by the company in the future. When that time comes, the Market would rerate this company at a higher PER.