Soilbuild Construction injects additional S$9.4m into Myanmar business

MAINBOARD-LISTED Soilbuild Construction Group on Wednesday injected S$9.4 million of additional funding in wholly-owned subsidiary Soilbuild Construction International (SBCI), raising its investment in SCBI to S$9.5 million from S$100,000.

It did this by subscribing for an additional 9.4 million shares, Soilbuild Construction said in a bourse filing.

The additional investment is to strengthen the capital base of SBCI. It is funded by internal resources, and is not expected to have any material effect on the earnings per share or net tangible assets per share of the group for FY20.

SCBI comprises Soilbuild (Myanmar), Soilbuild Construction (Myanmar) and Soilbuild (Thilawa).

Soilbuild Construction operates predominately in Singapore, Myanmar and Malaysia. The company expanded its construction business into Myanmar in 2012.

Soilbuild Construction clocked a gross profit of S$8 million from its Myanmar operations for FY19, despite a S$12.4 million drop in revenue from the year before to S$38.4 million. Its gross profit margin rose to 20.9 per cent for FY19, from 13.2 per cent for FY18.

As at Dec 31, 2019, it had three ongoing projects in Myanmar, with aggregate order books amounting to about S$71.9 million.

Soilbuild Construction last year said the group expects existing construction projects in Myanmar to be substantially completed in FY20, and will continue to tender for new projects in Myanmar.

No director or substantial shareholder of Soilbuild Construction has an interest, direct or indirect, in the additional investment in SBCI.

Earlier on Tuesday, ValueMax Group said it had injected S$1 million in cash in wholly-owned subsidiary ValueMax Pawnshop (SG), raising the share capital of ValueMax Pawnshop to S$10 million.

The cash injection was funded by the group's internal resources and is for the purpose of meeting the working capital requirements of ValueMax Pawnshop, ValueMax Group said in a bouse filing.

Soilbuild Construction shares were trading flat at 2.8 Singapore cents as at 9.42am on Thursday. ValueMax shares were trading flat at S$0.30.