SINGAPORE (Aug 17): CIMB is maintaining its “add” call for Boustead Singapore despite the group’s intention to stay focused on high value-added sectors instead of its industrial real-estate segment which saw a 25% rise in profit in 1Q17 from a year ago.
In a Tuesday note, analyst Roy Chen says the energy-related engineering segment recorded a pretax profit of $700,000 on the back of stringent cost controls. Chen believes that the risk of the energy division incurring huge losses is low, given the business’s negligible capex needs and scalable overhead expense.
In the geospatial technology space, the strong demand for Esri Technology in Australia and Southeast Asia continued to drive the division’s revenue and pretax profit growth, offsetting the adverse foreign exchange impact from the weaker AUD.
