On Feb 19, Marco Polo Marine : 5LY 0% non-executive director Darren Teo acquired one million shares at S$0.053 per share.

 

This increased his direct interest from 0.21 per cent to 0.23 per cent.

 

He also holds deemed interest through Apricot Capital, which holds a total of 607,142,857 of the shares in Marco Polo Marine. Teo indirectly owns 20 per cent of the issued and paid-up share capital of the company.

 

This brings his total interest in Marco Polo Marine to 16.4 per cent.

 

Marco Polo Marine has recorded a 11% y-o-y decline in its revenue for the 1QFY2025 ended Dec 31, 2024 of $25.8 million, following lower revenues from both its core ship chartering and shipyard segments. 

 

As such, the group&rsquo s gross profit dropped 9% y-o-y for the reporting period to $10.6 million, while gross profit margin improved by 1.1 percentage points (ppts) y-o-y. 

 

In its ship chartering business, revenue decreased by 13% y-o-y mainly due to lower third party chartering income from Taiwan. This decrease was partially offset by higher charter rates of utilised vessels and marginal improvement of 1 ppt in average fleet utilisation. 

 

The group says that the decline in demand for the re-chartering of third-party vessels in Taiwan is expected to persist through the rest of 1QFY2025. 

 

Revenue from shipyard decreased 9% y-o-y due to a decline in ship building activities. This was offset by an increase in ship repair projects that saw yard utilisation rates improve by 4 ppts to 83%. 

 

Strong momentum in average utilisation rates of the group&rsquo s shipyard for ship repair services in 1QFY2025 is anticipated to persist through FY2025. 

 

In Feb, Marco Polo expects to see the completion of Commissioning Service Operation Vessel (CSOV) and Drydock 4, and the acquisition of three Crew Transfer Vessels (CTVs). The group anticipates these assets to start contributing positively to the group&rsquo s financial performance from 2HFY2025 onwards. 

 

&ldquo Although revenue declined in 1QFY2025, the group&rsquo s performance remains within our expectations for the period. We look forward to 2HFY2025, where we will start to see the benefits of our investments from the past two years, and their full contributions from FY2026   onwards,&rdquo said Sean Lee, CEO of Marco Polo Marine .

 

Tai Sin Electric' s earnings up 129.3% y-o-y, growth in public sector construction and data centre developments in S' pore

 

Tai Sin Electric has reported a 129.3% y-o-y increase in earnings for the 1HFY2025 ended Dec 31, 2024 of $15.9 million. 

 

Earnings per share for the group in the reporting period came in at 3.45 cents, up from the 1.50 cents in the same period a year ago. 

 

The mainboard listed cable and wire manufacturing company saw a 20.10% y-o-y growth in revenue for the reporting period of $235.1 million, and gross profit grew 27.95% y-o-y to $41.3 million.

 

The group says that revenue increase was across all of the segments except for its switchboard segment. 

 

The increase in the cable and wire segment was due to growth in public sector construction activities and data center developments in Singapore. In Malaysia and Vietnam, revenue improvements were due to exports to the Philippines and Cambodia. 

 

The electrical material distribution segment saw an increase from the building and infrastructure (BIF) cluster, chemical, oil & gas (COG) cluster, marine (MAR) cluster and electronic

(ELN) cluster supported by the growth of these clusters&rsquo activities in Singapore and Malaysia.

 

Revenue from the test & inspection (T& I) segment increased from heat treatment and non-destructive testing activities, as more jobs were carried out for both the ongoing and new projects in Indonesia. 

 

Meanwhile, revenue from the switchboard segment declined due to less projects in Brunei. 

 

The group&rsquo s other operating income increased from $2.795 million in 1HFY2024 to $3.328 million in 1HFY2025 due to a $2.199 million gain on the disposal of a Cambodian subsidiary under the T& I segment.

 

Cash and cash equivalents increased to $36.2 million, while the group' s net cash from operating activities came in at $7.3 million for the reporting period. 

 

The group has announced an interim one-tier tax exempt dividend of 0.75 cents per ordinary share, paid out on March 12, 2025.