Insider moves: Peter Lim raises stake in Thomson Medical; Ng of Q&M Dental snaps up shares
Peter Lim, the controlling shareholder of Thomson Medical Group, bought some shares of the healthcare company last week. On April 1, he spent $244,800 to buy 5.4 million shares. This works out to an average cost of 4.5 cents per share.
With the purchase, Lim increased his direct stake in the private hospital operator to 14.3 billion shares, or 54.209%.
Lim, dubbed the “Remisier King”, also holds an indirect stake of 8.94 billion shares, or 33.812% through various entities such as Jovina Investments, Bellton International, Garville, Garville (Hong Kong) and Meriton Capital.
Therefore, Lim’s total stake in the company has risen to 88.02% from 88%.
In FY2019 ended Dec 31, 2019, Thomson Medical reported earnings of $3.14 million, down 78.6% from FY2018. Revenue in the same period increased by 6% to $229. 8 million.
In 4QFY2019 ended Dec 31, 2019, the company reported a loss of $1.1 million, a reversal from earnings of $0.8 million in the year earlier period. The losses were due to a one-off and non-cash additional deferred tax liabilities the company had to book following changes in property gains tax from 5% to 10%. Excluding this charge, the company’s earnings would have been $2.1 million for 4QFY2019, and $6.3 million for FY2019.
Thomson Medical saw a change at the helm recently. Roy Quek, the previous group CEO, stepped down and Dr Wong Chiang Yin was made executive director and group CEO from Feb 1. Wong was previously the executive director and group CEO of Singapore listed Cordlife Group; president of Thomson International and executive director of Bursa Malaysia-listed TMC Life
Sciences, CEO and executive director of hospital division, Pantai Holdings. He was also the former COO at Singapore General Hospital and Changi General Hospital.
Q&M Dental founder and director scoops up shares
Dr Ng Chin Siau, founder and group CEO of Q&M Dental Group (Singapore), has been buying shares in the company after the dental group announced its full-year earnings in early March. In addition, the company has been actively buying back its own shares.
On April 2, Ng, via his privately-held entity called Quan Min Holdings, bought 545,000 shares for $200,827.05, which works out to an average of 36.8 cents. Quan Min Holdings now holds just over 448.3 million shares or 56.88%, in Q&M Dental, up from 56.81% previously.
The following day on April 3, the company spent $96,027.14 to buy back 260,000 shares at prices ranging from 36 and 37 cents each. This brings the cumulative number of shares bought back under the current mandate to around 3.54 million shares.
Besides Ng, non-executive director Narayanan Sreenivasan also bought shares in the company too. On March 17, he bought 100,000 shares at 40 cents each, bringing his total stake to 420,000 shares.
In FY2019 ended Dec 31, Q&M Dental reported revenue increased by 6% to $128 million. However, earnings increased by 28% to $18 million, helped partly by a one-off gain of $11.6 million selling a stake in an associate. “We will continue to make strategic investments such as AI and dental education and upon successful execution to continue rewarding shareholders accordingly,” says Dr Ng.
Part of the gains from the sale will be distributed to shareholders in the form of a special dividend of 2 cents per share. On top of the final dividend of 0.42 cent and an interim dividend of 0.4 cent already declared, will bring FY2019 total payout to 2.82 cents per share. For FY2018, the company paid 0.82 cents per share. E