The suspension was triggered after the stock fell 15% or 15 sen from its reference price. Its intraday short selling will only be activated tomorrow at 8.30am, according to Bursa Malaysia Securities.
Controlled by low-profile tycoon Desmond Lim, WCT managed to pare its losses and was down 12.95% or 14.5 sen at 97.5 sen at 3pm, giving it a valuation of RM1.38 billion.
It was the sixth most actively traded counter on Bursa, with a total of 75.7 million shares changing hands at the time of writing. This was the second consecutive trading day decline, having fallen 12% last Friday.
The group had been riding the rally in the construction and property sectors, fuelled by optimism on the rollout of major government infrastructure projects and private sector contract awards, particularly data centre projects.
Despite the latest selloff, WCT’s shares are up 95% year-to-date and 116% in the past one year.
Fund raising exercise
Last Friday, WCT announced it is planning a private placement of up to 141.66 million new shares to raise up to RM163 million for working capital and repayment of bank borrowings.
The private placement of new shares, which represent up to 10% of the total issued shares, is expected to dilute investors’ shareholdings and earnings per share.
In its bourse filing, WCT said the proposed placement will enable it to raise the requisite funds for its on-going construction projects and mitigate against any delays, and complement its “de-gearing initiatives” that aim to reduce gross gearing to below 0.6 times.
The group has total outstanding borrowings of RM3.1 billion, representing a gross gearing of 0.86 times as of March 31, 2024.
Lim is the largest shareholder with a 25.57% equity interest comprising a direct stake of 7.42% and indirect stake of 18.15% through his private vehicle Dominion Nexus Sdn Bhd. The next biggest shareholder is Amanah Saham Nasional Bhd with 5.82%.
The executive chairman of WCT, Lim is also the non-executive chairman of property developer Malton. He is the largest shareholder through a 4.29% direct stake and indirect interest of 39.36% via Malton Corp Sdn Bhd.
WCT suffered a loss after tax of RM209.40 million for its financial year ended Dec 31, 2023 (FY2023) from RM172.79 million in FY2022. The loss was mainly due to the reversal of profit recognised in prior years by the engineering and construction segment, and impairment of its property inventories.