Hot Stock Eden shares up on news it will build dinosaur park

Hot Stock Eden shares up on news it will build dinosaur park
Business & Markets 2013
Written by Kamarul Anw ar of theedgemalaysia.com
Friday, 01 March 2013 12:38
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KUALA LUMPUR (Mar 1): Eden Inc Bhd emerged as one of the top actives this morning, days after it was announced the investment group is going to build a RM200 million dinosaur-themed amusement park in Malacca.

At 12:19 pm, Eden’s shares were up 1.5 sen, or 5.77%, to 27.5 sen with 3.84 million shares traded. The counter had hit a high of 28.5 sen earlier.

On Monday, Bernama reported Malacca’s Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam announced that the state plans to build a dinosaurthemed “Jurassic Park” costing RM200 million at the 1Malaysia Square.

The park will feature hydraulic- and electronic-based models of 200 species of dinosaurs and will be built on a 12.1ha site by Eden and Yayasan Melaka. Mohd Ali said the park, which is “the first tour of its kind in Asia”, will take two years to complete. No specific date of completion was announced.

SJ Securities senior remisier Goh Kay Chong said this news might be an impetus for investors to buy Eden’s shares.

“Investors who love low-priced stocks look for this kind of news to see which companies to invest on,” he told theedgemalaysia.com.

He also added Eden is a safer company to invest on, as it already bounced from losses in FY10. Eden’s net losses in the year came to RM1.71 million on revenue of RM202.62 million.

For its financial year ended December 31, 2012 (FY12), Eden made RM11.38 million in net profit, or 3.65 sen per share, on revenue of RM91.28 million. The net profit was up by 2.82% from the previous year’s net profit of RM11.07 million on revenue of RM173.28 million.

However, Eden’s FY12 total net profit came solely from its fourth quarter, which raked in RM12.68 million in net profit. Its revenue for the period was RM15.98 million.

Eden’s food and beverage (F&B) and tourism segment contributed the lion’s share in revenue and pre-tax profit in the fourth quarter, amounting to RM10.22 million and RM7.81 million respectively. Year-on-year, the segment made RM8.68 million in revenue and RM360,000 in pre-tax profit.

In a filing to Bursa, Eden said the big jump year-on-year in its F&B and tourism segment’s revenue was because it received a
higher number of catering functions and a bigger attendance for its Underwater World Langkawi aquaria.

The higher revenue in the fourth quarter was also due to the reversal of provision in relation to entertainment duty, said Eden in the filing.