Top Glove to enhance Aspion’s performance and profitability in 5 years

SHAH ALAM: Top Glove Corp Bhd, the world’s largest rubber glove manufacturer, aims to improve the profit of its newly-acquired Aspion Sdn Bhd in the next five years.

Top Glove executive chairman Tan Sri Dr Lim Wee Chai said the group had sent a team of managers, engineers, accountants and chemists to Aspion factories to enhance the firm’s performance and profitability.

“Aspion is still profitable but not as much as we expected. In fact, it is less than half of our expectations. We can improve on its performance, but it will take some time.

“We have proven this with our track record. We have acquired 13 factories and companies and built 27 factories, and have the experience to turn bad to good, and good to better,” he said after a briefing on the group’s financial results, here, yesterday.

For the year ended August 31, Top Glove posted record sales revenue of RM4.21 billion, a 23.6 per cent growth compared with the previous financial year.

Pre-tax profit stood at an alltime high of RM522 million, an increase of 36.4 per cent from previously, while sales volume surged 26 per cent year-on-year.

Lim said the results underlined the effectiveness of its technology-driven improvement initiatives which focused on quality and cost-efficiency.

He said Top Glove would continue to pursue strategic expansion along with the expansion of several facilities, including F32 (Phases 1 to be completed early next year and Phase 2 at the end of next year), F33 (to be completed early next year) and F5A (to be completed by the end of next year).

Its newest factory, F8A in Thailand, is scheduled to be operational by early 2020.

Lim said these would boost the group’s total production lines to 746 and production capacity to 69.1 billion gloves per year by 2020.

“Top Glove is also looking to expand into Vietnam and has entered into an agreement to acquire land for a factory which is expected to commence operations within two years.”

In support of its ambitious agenda, Lim said Top Glove would continue to explore inorganic expansions via mergers and acquisitions as well as new setups in related industries to grow faster.

Despite cost increases and intensifying competition, he said the group remained highly optimistic of prospects, given the steady global glove demand which was set to grow about 10 per cent annually.