Jentayu Sustainables shares fall to near six-month low, intraday short-selling suspended

KUALA LUMPUR (July 2): Shares of Jentayu Sustainables Bhd (KL:JSB) plunged to their lowest in nearly six months on Tuesday’s morning trade, prompting Bursa Securities to suspend the counter’s intraday short selling (IDSS).

JSB's share price fell as much as 22 sen or 26% to its intraday low of 62 sen — its lowest since Jan 23, 2024.

The stock was last traded at 63.5 sen before the noon trading break, valuing the loss-making group, which is engaged in renewable energy, healthcare and trading of building materials, at RM280.28 million on Bursa Malaysia. More than 9.3 million shares changed hands. JSB’s warrants (KL:JSB-WB) fell 16% to 24.5 sen.

Over the past year, JSB shares have declined by 25.3%.

The IDSS of JSB has been suspended for the rest of Tuesday, after its last done price fell by more than 15 sen or 15% of the reference price, Bursa said in an announcement.

"The short selling under IDSS will only be activated the following trading day, Wednesday (July 3) at 8.30am," the stock exchange regulator said.

The IDSS of JSB was also suspended on Jan 17 after the counter hit its limit down, dropping as much as 30% or 39 sen to a then three-month low of 91 sen. It then continued to nosedive in the following days, hitting another limit down two days later, prompting Bursa to freeze the lower limit share price for the counter at 50 sen, its lowest in 16 months at the time.

Responding to an unusual market activity (UMA) query from Bursa after the sharp fall in its share price, JSB said the recent completion of its private placement might be the reason for increased trading activity in the counter.

In the previous month, JSB announced a private placement of up to 57.24 million shares or 10% of its share base of 572.37 million shares.

The placement had raised RM66.39 million to fund the company's pre-development expenditures related to two hydropower plants in Sabah, new projects and working capital.

The green energy solutions provider at the time assured that the selling wave did not accurately reflect the company's underlying fundamentals, arguing that the price fluctuations were short-term in nature.

Prior to the sell-off, JSB’s share price climbed 200% over the past two years from 43.5 sen at end-2021 to a peak of RM1.32 early in January.

On the financial front, JSB widened its net loss to RM9.25 million in the third quarter ended March 31, 2024 (3QFY2024) from a net loss of RM6.82 million in the same period last year, as revenue dropped 15.1% to RM5 million from RM5.84 million due to the decline of revenue generated from its healthcare division.

The largest shareholder of JSB is Datin Norhaida Abu Sahid, who is the spouse of the group’s executive chairman Datuk Beroz Nikmal Mirdin with a 14.47% stake, Bloombergdata showed.

Norhaida is a director of Jentayu Capital Sdn Bhd and Borneo Sustainable Energy Sdn Bhd, which are wholly owned subsidiaries of the group. Beroz Nikmal holds a direct stake of 4.42% in JSB.

The second largest substantial shareholder in JSB is American investment bank Morgan Stanley with a 7.9% stake in the company.

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