Pantai makes record net profit

Business Times: "HOSPITAL operator Pantai Holdings Bhd returned to financial health with a record full-year net profit in fiscal year 2005, helped by better sales, as its shares soared to their highest in more than a year yesterday.
The stock jumped as much as 11 per cent to RM1.30, its highest level in 13 months, a day after US investment bank JPMorgan started to cover the company and placed a 12-month share price target of RM1.80.
Pantai swung to a net profit of RM43.55 million for the year ended June 30 2005 against a loss of RM112.68 million a year earlier, it said in a statement to Bursa Malaysia Bhd.
Revenue rose 15 per cent to RM705.84 million as against RM613.21 million before.
The rise in revenue was due mainly to the support services division, namely Pantai Medivest Sdn Bhd and Fomema Sdn Bhd, which contributed 44 per cent to the group’s total turnover.
The RM351 million revenue from its hospital services division was a 17 per cent increase from last year’s.
“Healthcare business is no longer perceived as a dreary outfit with nominal and languishing profits. In fact, it is growing at an exponential rate,” Pantai chairman Datuk Dr Ridzwan Bakar said in a separate statement.
Dr Ridzwan said the company is confident it will continue to perform well, given the added boost in revenue to Fomema with the new government regulation of mandatory medical check-ups for foreign workers upon entry into the country.
In the past, workers only needed to have check-ups after a year’s stay.
JPMorgan, which calls the company a healthcare gem, expects Pantai’s net profit to jump some 47 per cent to RM64 million in 2006, helped by growing demand for healthcare and improvements to its government concessions.
Shares of Pantai rose 9.4 per cent, or 11 sen, to close at RM1.28 yesterday."