It is looking to grow the size of its plantation landbank at an annual rate of 10% to 20% to generate a more stable income in the oil palm business segment in the long run.
Its land acquisition would quite likely be in Indonesia, where a bulk of its engineering business was based.
Currently, its landbank totals about 14,000 hectares, all of which are in Sarawak. As of March 31, 2009, its cash and cash equivalents stood at RM17.78 million with a gearing ratio of about 0.3 times.
It will try to gear up a little bit more and further expand the business.
CBIP was looking at both new and existing plantations but added that it was tougher to acquire brownfields as it required intensive capital.
At the moment, plantations contribute 20% to 30% to the group’s profit.
For the first quarter ended March 31, 2009, CBIP’s net profit declined 8% to RM8.13 million from RM8.85 million a year earlier, due to the poor performance in the plantation segment resulting from the lower average selling price of fresh fruit bunches.
Revenue rose 17.6% to RM77.02 million from RM65.48 million previously due to the additional sales generated by a newly acquired oil palm plantation and the improvement in project billing.
On its engineering side, it was seeing a steady growth. The group’s order book now totalled RM300 million and soon to rise to RM350 million, which would last it until the first quarter of 2011.
The company was looking to buy back more of its shares after carrying out a series of such buybacks in the second half of 2008. It spent RM5.74 million to acquire about 1.2% of the company’s paid-up capital in 2008.
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CBIP ... Feb 2009
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