Hot stock: Thomson Medical surges 12.5%, surpassing 52-week high

SHARES in mainboard-listed Thomson Medical Group, which is majority-owned by Singapore billionaire Peter Lim, rallied on Thursday amid active trading this week.

As at 3.53pm, the counter hit an intraday high of 9.9 Singapore cents, up 1.1 cent or some 12.5 per cent. The healthcare player has now surpassed its 52-week high of 9.5 Singapore cents. It gained 64.6 per cent last week and is up by 25.3 per cent so far this week as of Thursday afternoon.

About 400.8 million shares changed hands, making it one of the most heavily traded stocks on the Singapore bourse for the day.

No married deals were recorded by afternoon trade, though several large trades - each with a value exceeding S$150,000 - were carried out, ShareInvestor data show.

Trading in Thomson Medical’s warrants picked up as well, with 21.5 million warrants changing hands on Thursday. The warrants hit an intraday high of S$0.009 before closing at S$0.008, up 33.3 per cent. 

Listed in May 2019, the warrants give holders the right to subscribe to one share at an exercise price of S$0.12. 

GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign UpVIEW ALL

Huge volumes of shares have been transacted since last Tuesday, a day after the group announced that it was back in the black for H1 FY2021.

On Feb 9, the counter soared one Singapore cent or some 20.4 per cent to finish at 5.9 Singapore cents, on turnover of 115.9 million shares. This is more than 30 times its turnover of 3.7 million shares traded on Feb 8, before its results announcement later that day.

As at Sept 14, 2020, Mr Lim owned a 88.3 per cent stake in Thomson Medical, said the group's latest annual report.

For the six months ended Dec 31, the mainboard-listed group posted a net profit of S$8.1 million, reversing from a net loss of S$1.9 million in the year-ago period.

While revenue for the group declined 1.3 per cent year on year (y-o-y) to S$116.6 million, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation jumped 32.6 per cent y-o-y to S$31.8 million.

"With various movement and social distancing measures still in force to stem Covid-19 transmission, overall patient loads in both Singapore and Malaysia continued to stay low," the group said in a statement last week.

As a result, revenue took a hit. Revenue from its hospital services fell 3.6 per cent, though this was offset by earnings from specialised services, which grew 2.7 per cent.

Earnings per share came in at 0.0306 Singapore cent for H1 FY2021, versus loss per share of 0.0072 Singapore cent in H1 FY2020. No dividend was declared for the period, unchanged from the year before.

Thomson Medical shares finished at 9.7 Singapore cents on Thursday, up 0.9 cent or some 10.2 per cent.