Broadway Industrial gets third trading query in nine months

MAINBOARD-LISTED precision manufacturer Broadway Industrial Group was hit with a fresh query by the bourse regulator over trading activity on Wednesday, its third one in nine months.

The group's shares climbed 32.8 per cent, or 2.1 Singapore cents, to close at 8.5 Singapore cents on Wednesday. A total of 36.3 million shares changed hands.

Kelvin Koh, head of surveillance at Singapore Exchange Regulation (SGX RegCo), noted unusual volume movements in the shares and asked whether the issuer was aware of any unannounced information or other possible explanations for the trading activity.

He further noted that this is the second query issued to the company in the past four months - Broadway Industrial was last queried on December 17, 2019, after one on July 22 last year.

Broadway Industrial, responding to the query, said it was still in talks with two prospects on merger and acquisition transactions, as had been announced in November, and was unaware of any other information that could explain the unusual share price movements.

The group was put on a watch-list in June for missing the minimum trading price requirement.

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Broadway Industrial said on Feb 23 that it has been served two writs of summons and statements of claim in relation to the sale of its foam-plastics solutions and flow-control device businesses. The aggregate minimum amount of claims, which the company intends to "defend vigorously", amounted to about S$9.3 million.

The group's loss for the full year ended Dec 31, 2019 was S$21.4 million, compared with a net profit of S$1.81 million a year ago. Revenue was down 20.4 per cent to S$305.67 million due to continued weakness in the hard disk drive market in 2019.

Current assets stood at S$95.8 million as at December 31, 2019.