CHANGING OF THE GUARD AT MALAYSIA CGB
New Management Team Brings in Fresh Ideas and Projects In The Pipeline
Bursa Securities Main Market-listed Central Global Bhd (CGB, Stock code 8052), which in February 2021 saw a change in the senior management personnel. The new team is working towards fortifying the company’s position as a leading producer of self-adhesive label stocks and tapes in Malaysia.
CGB executive chairman Dato’ Faisal Zelman, who was appointed to the board on Feb 26, 2021, said the new board would at the same time focus efforts on growing the construction business, which was loss-making in the financial year ended Dec 31, 2020 (FY2020).
“We aim to reinforce our leading position in the self-adhesive label stock and tapes business; new talent and new ideas will be brought in as we foresee lots of potential in this industry,” he said.
“Our manufacturing operations is good to run on its own, it’s operating full fledge. What we want to do is streamline the production operations, buy new machinery, save costs where we can and expand to new markets,” he said. Manufacturing contributed to 43% of revenue to CGB in FY2020.
CGB’s self-adhesive label stocks and tapes, which cater mainly for professional auto spray painting, packing, advertising applications, general labelling and identification, are exported to Australia, New Zealand, USA, China, Thailand, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Europe.
According to the notes attached to the company’s fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2020 financial results released in late February 2021, CGB would be increasing prices of products to counter the rise in material cost such as paper, rubber and chemicals going into the first quarter of 2021.
As for the construction business, CGB’s current projects located in Penang would last for another two years. “We are proceeding cautiously with construction as it’s a competitive industry but we do see huge potential,” he said.
The construction business’s current order book is RM42 million. “We are aiming to increase the order book and we are working on some deals that will be announced this year. Our focus is mostly constructing for property developers although we are also looking at civil infrastructure,” he added.
CGB expects this year to be better than last year. “We are still cautious as this is the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the manufacturing business is steady and we are looking at a potential pipeline of construction projects coming our way, which is reason enough to expect this year to be better than last year,” he noted.
