Board changes in Astral Supreme

KUALA LUMPUR: Teoh Kok Aun has emerged as a new substantial shareholder in Astral Supreme Bhd with a direct 7.19% stake which he bought from the open market a few days ago.

Penang-based Teoh bought the interest amounting to 10.15 million shares on March 29, filings with Bursa Malaysia showed.

Astral is involved in the manufacture and assembly/export of electronic products and components with facility in Kulim, and silk screen printing and embroidery in Cambodia.

Astral had at the end of last year seen some shareholding changes with several of its substantial shareholders selling off their stakes in the company.

Its previous executive director Ooi Chieng Sim, 43 had resigned from Astral in February after selling all his stake in an off market direct disposal deal in August 2011.

He was replaced by Lee Heng Khen, who was redesignated as Astral’s chairman and executive director in February. Lee was formerly an independent non-executive director.

Lembaga Tabung Haji had also ceased to be its substantial shareholder after selling off 2.5mil shares in November last year. It still holds a major block of shares in Astral with a 4.6% stake, filings showed.

Another major shareholder, A1 Capital Sdn Bhd, had also trimmed its stakes by 20 million shares and ceased to be a substantial shareholder since November last year. Astral’s annual report showed that A1 Capital had held an almost 20% stake in the company as of March 31, 2011.

Interestingly, Astral’s shares, which had been on a downtrend since 2007, had seen some interest picking up since August last year when these major shareholding changes happened.

The penny stock has perked up from historical all-time low of 13.5 sen in August 2011 and closed unchanged yesterday at 21 sen with a notable volume of 5.9 million shares.