Key West, L&G draw investor interest

KUALA LUMPUR: Interest swirled around Land & General Bhd (L&G) and Ace market-listed Key West Global Telecommunications Bhd on Tuesday, Apr 19, causing both stocks to end the day on the top most active volume list.

Key West rose to 17 sen before closing at 16.5 sen netting in gains of 1.5 sen or 10% from Monday's close of 15 sen. Trading volume of the shares spiked on Tuesday with 14.4 million shares of the telecommunications company changing hands. That translated into a 128.5% increase in volume compared with 63.3 million shares traded the day before.

L&G also saw an increase in trading volume with shares traded jumping 805% with 17.2 million shares changing hands on Tuesday against 1.9 million on Monday. Its shares gained 6.6% or three sen to 48.5 sen from 45.5 sen the day before.

The Edge Financial Daily recently reported corporate developments at both companies.

L&G's managing director Low Gay Teck told the newspaper that a lucrative development for the company going forward lies in its remaining 43 acres (17.2ha) of freehold development land in Sri Damansara — the jewel in the crown.

The property company that had seen Tan Sri David Chiu emerging as a substantial shareholder in the late 2007s has unbilled sales of about RM45 million from the 8trium@Sri Damansara project with only 10% of construction works to be completed. The unbilled sales figure excludes its 50% share of the RM200 million gross development value sold in  phase 1 of The Elements@Ampang.  

The company with a cash position of RM141.1 million is also scouting for more landbank which is expected to be concluded in the next few months.

Meanwhile, telecommunications company Key West's newly appointed executive director Stephen Ng revealed that the company had diversified into extraction of crude oil from marginal oilfields in Indonesia through its joint venture with Indonesia-based PT SA Petroleum (PTSA) which had started extracting crude oil from an onshore field of four oil wells in the district of Bojonegoro.

The results from the JV will start to reflect in Key West's next quarterly results for its 1Q ending Apr 30, 2011 which will make up for the loss of revenue and profit from its telecommunications business.