Sapphire shares soar 38% on news of steel business sale

SAPPHIRE Corp's shares defied the stock market's general bearish tone yesterday, jumping 38 per cent on news over the weekend that it was selling its entire flagging steel business in China for $70 million.

Traders cheered the latest development, which they took as a signal that the ailing steel firm would not slip into the Singapore Exchange's watch-list, a risk that the firm had warned of in early March after it suffered three consecutive years of pre-tax losses.

Still, the one thing keeping the firm off the dreaded list, which could trigger a delisting unless it got its act together in two years, was that Sapphire's market capitalisation stood at more than $40 million.