A fund manager said the Covid-19 pandemic had increased the importance and role of ESG compliance.
PETALING JAYA: As environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliance becomes more mainstream, and even a benchmark for investors today, corporations are increasingly faced with the arduous task of meeting challenging reporting demands.
An analyst noted that ESG metrics such as waste, energy and carbon can be challenging to quantify and report.
“It’s difficult because there isn’t one global standard and even if there were, it’s constantly changing and evolving,” he said.
Deloitte, in a paper titled “ESG Risks: The Reporting Challenge”, said changes in investors’ and society’s expectations have translated into a growing demand for better corporate reporting that responds to the need to understand broader risks and business impacts.
KUALA LUMPUR (May 6): Analysts have revised down their earnings forecasts and target prices (TPs) for Supermax Corp Bhd as they foresee lower average selling prices (ASPs) for gloves after the group’s net profit for the nine months ended March 31, 2021 (9MFY21) came in below their expectations.
Kenanga Research analyst Raymond Choo said in a note that the group’s 9MFY21 profit after tax and minority interests came in below expectations at 71% of his full-year forecast.
“The negative variance to our estimate was due to lower-than-expected ASPs. Hence, we downgrade [our] FY21/FY22 net profit [forecasts] by 6%/6%,” he said.
Following the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines, which is likely to cause glove demand to moderate, the group highlighted that global glove prices had since dropped by 15% to 25%.
KUALA LUMPUR (April 28): Sapura Energy Bhd was among the most actively traded stocks this morning amid mixed reviews from analysts after the group secured oil and gas contracts worth RM1 billion while reporting a smaller net loss in the fourth quarter ended Jan 31, 2021 (4QFY21).
Sapura Energy rose as much as one sen or 7.69% to 14 sen in early trades. At 10.19am, the counter pared some gains at 13.5 sen, still up five sen or 3.85%.
The counter, which was the fifth most actively traded stock, saw 66.32 million shares changed hands.
MIDF Research’s analyst Kifni Kamaruddin maintained his buy call on Sapura Energy with an unchanged target price (TP) of 16 sen as he continued to view Sapura Energy’s future prospects positively given that the operating environment worldwide has improved since mid-2020, underpinned by higher oil prices that have rebounded significantly to US$60 per barrel levels, which will benefit the group s engineering and construction (E&C) as well as explora
KUALA LUMPUR (March 10): Affin Hwang Capital has downgraded its rating for Scientex Bhd to hold from buy , as it expects further margin squeeze in the group’s manufacturing segment in the subsequent quarters.
Its analyst Azhani Hashim said in a note today the flexible plastic packaging manufacturer’s core net profit of RM189 million for the six months ended Jan 31, 2021 (1HFY21) made up 42% of street’s and his full-year FY21 forecasts.
“While the property segment recorded higher sales and progress billings, the manufacturing segment saw a 1.6 percentage point decline in earnings before interest and taxes margin from higher resin and freight cost,” he said.