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Saturday 7 January 2012

Bursa lifts restrictions on Harvest Court securities

Read more: http://www.btimes.com.my/articles/20120107003551/Article/

Kuala Lumpur: Bursa Malaysia has lifted the designated securities status of Harvest Court Industries Bhd, about seven weeks after trading restrictions were imposed on the timber company. Trading of the company's shares will be back to the normal T+3 settlement, where investors must complete their security transactions within three business days. When the trading restrictions were imposed, investors were required to pay cash upfront to trade in the securities and hold the securities for a minimum of three trading days before they could sell them. "Bursa Malaysia will lift the designated securities status of Harvest and Harvest Court Industries Warrants (Harvest-WA) with effect from 9am, January 9, 2012. The securities of Harvest and Harvest-WA will be traded on a Ready Basis, for which the delivery and settlement of contracts will be effected on T+3, as provided under the rules of Bursa Malaysia," said the stock market regulator in a statement yesterday. The timber company's shares went through a roller coaster ride last year and#8211; as it was trading at as low as 7.5 sen on September 27, 2011, before skyrocketing to RM2.13 on November 14, 2011. The movement of the share price was partly driven by news of the emergence Datuk Raymond Chan Boon Siew as the company's new substantial shareholder. Chan is the managing director of Sagajuta Group. Chan's Sagajuta received considerable press mileage after the company was linked to a possible takeover of Jerneh Asia Bhd, a company controlled by the country's richest man, Robert Kuok Hock Nien. Within months after the deal fell through, Chan emerged in Harvest Court, fuelling speculation that Sagajuta's assets might be injected into Harvest Court. The appointment of Mohd Nazifuddin Mohd Najib to the company's board of director, as well as his resignation less than two months after the appointment, were believed to be another driver of Harvest's securities price movement. Since it was declared as a designated securities, its shares were traded at an average of RM1.11, with a high of RM1.49 and a low of 79 sen. Trading volume has also toned down to the one-million level. During the one-month period before it was imposed with the trading restrictions, an average of 35.4 million shares changed hands each day. So far this year, average daily trading volume is less than 158,000 shares. Nevertheless, Bursa Malaysia said it would continue to monitor Harvest securities. "In the discharge of its front line regulatory role, the exchange will continue to monitor the trading activities of Harvest and Harvest-WA, and where trading concerns are noted, the exchange may take appropriate regulatory actions," Bursa Malaysia said.

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