KUALA LUMPUR, March 22 (Bernama) — Dairy farm operator, Farm Fresh Bhd has debuted on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd today with a share price of RM1.70 per unit — a premium of 35 sen from its offer price of RM1.35.
At the opening bell, the counter saw 27.24 million shares changing hands.
This is the largest listing on Bursa Securities since June 2021, given its market capitalisation of RM2.5 billion.
Commenting on the listing, Farm Fresh group managing director and group chief executive officer, Loi Tuan Ee said with the support and participation of its stakeholders, the group aims to venture into new regions and markets to expand its presence.
“With the growing consumer demand for fresh milk products, I am confident Farm Fresh is able to deliver quality products and value to consumers,” he told reporters after the group’s debut on the Main Market here, today.
Loi said the group has exciting plans laid out to further grow its business and improve its market penetration.
He said Farm Fresh will be rolling out fortified growing-up milk in June this year, which will compete with both powder-based kids’ milk and ready-to-drink reconstituted milk-based products.
“This will enable us to drive further growth with our culture of innovation and commitment to producing healthy products for our growing children,” he said.
Meanwhile, chief financial officer Mohd Khairul Mat Hassan said completion of the Taiping farm and processing plant this year will improve the group’s upstream and mid-stream capacity and reduce logistics costs to supply chilled milk products to the northern states of Peninsular Malaysia.
The group also plans to set up additional filling and packaging lines at its Muadzam Shah facility in the second quarter of 2022 and its processing facility at the University Putra Malaysia farm.
“We expect to increase annual production capacity by 29.8 million litres this year,” he said.
Mohd Khairul said the group also intends to kickstart its regional expansion, with its planned entry into Indonesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong.
“In the shorter term, our immediate focus is on the Singapore market, as the completion of the Taiping processing plant will free up some capacity at our Larkin processing plant, enabling us to focus on our exports in Singapore which have been growing strongly over the last three years,” he added.
Farm Fresh operates five dairy farms in Malaysia and one in Australia — a total of 2,191.78 hectares, with a combined herd size of about 9,960 bulls and dairy cows, of which 3,748 are milking cows.
The group also owns and operates two processing facilities in Johor and Pahang, with a combined production capacity of around 137.0 million litres of finished goods annually, as well as a processing facility in Kyabram, Australia, with the capacity to produce around 84.0 million litres of processed milk per annum.
At 12.08 pm, Farm Fresh’s shares rose by 42 sen to RM1.77, with 244.84 million shares traded.
Sources: BERNAMA