Wealth management fintech platform iFast Corporation is buying back shares after announcing a net loss for its 2QFY2022 ended June because of an impairment.
On July 25, the company acquired 106,900 shares at between $3.74 and $3.75 each, bringing the total number of shares bought back under the current mandate to 506,900 shares.
The following day, executive chairman Lim Chung Chun increased his stake as well. Through a nominee account, he acquired 34,100 shares for a total of $129,474 or around $3.80 each share. He now has a total interest of 59.48 million shares, equivalent to 20.306%.
Two days earlier, iFast reported it had booked a $5.2 million impairment for its associate iFast India Holdings. This happened after it had exited its onshore platform service business in India “to focus on providing global fintech solutions”.
The impairment resulted in a net loss of $2.7 million, which compares with earnings of $7 million recorded for 2QFY2021.
iFast plans to pay a second interim dividend of 1.1 cents per share, which is the same as that paid for 2QFY2021.
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Despite this hiccup, iFast is upbeat that growth in its other markets and business segments will lead to overall revenue growth in the coming three years, albeit with a “substantial decline” in FY2022 earnings because of the impairment and higher expenses.
With its Hong Kong ePension unit, which offers pension scheme operation and administration services, recording earnings from 3QFY2023 onwards, iFast expects FY2023 to chalk up “new highs” for both revenue and earnings.
Just over a month earlier, one of iFast’s independent directors, Mark Duncan, had trimmed his stake in the company. On June 20, Hong Kong-based Duncan sold 12,600 shares at $4 each in the open market, leaving him with 306,800 shares. The shares are held via a nominee account with Citibank.
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Duncan, who was appointed to iFast’s board on Jan 21, 2021, is now the CEO of Typhoon Wealth, a financial services advisory company focused on technology implementation in banking and wealth management. He was previously with Macquarie and ING.
A month before Duncan’s sale, Kok Chee Wai, who is also an independent director since 2014, acquired 20,000 shares on May 11 for $93,795 or $4.69 each. This brings Kok’s interest to 1.52 million shares or 0.519%. Kok has been a partner at leading law firm Allen & Gledhill since 1998.
Alliance Healthcare Group has resumed buying back shares this month, following an earlier active period of doing so in March and April.
The company, which operates a chain of clinics, has methodologically bought back 200,000 shares on July 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22. The price paid for the shares was kept in a very tight range of between 17.39 and 17.4 cents each.
With the July 22 transaction, the company has bought back a total of 2.14 million shares under the current mandate.
For the six months ended December 2021, the company reported revenues of $28.6 million, up 23.8% y-o-y due to higher revenue from better sales in its mobile and digital health services segment, GP clinic services segment and managed healthcare solutions segment.
On the other hand, revenue was partially offset by lower sales from the pharmaceutical services segment due to lower demand for medical supplies from certain hospitals. Alliance Healthcare was able to achieve better margins and not just higher revenue.
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As such, earnings for the same six months ended December 2021 were $1.7 million, up 88.1% y-o-y from $0.9 million recorded the year-earlier period.
Besides operating its own clinics, Alliance Healthcare has another business providing e-services to other clinics.
On April 22, the company announced the launch of Ally E-Services in collaboration with SG IMED. Ally E-Services can be used to help clinics provide their patients with digital services that include e-appointments, e-payments and teleconsultations.
