KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 27): Shares in SMRT Holdings Bhd were actively traded on Monday (Feb 27), making the counter one of the most active across Bursa Malaysia, with its share price climbing more than 22%.

SMRT opened at 31 sen in the morning trade, before rising to an intraday high of 39 sen.

At the closing bell, the stock had jumped 22.58% or seven sen to settle at 38 sen ⁠— a level not seen since June 2015. At that price, the ACE-Market listed firm was valued at RM170.06 million.

Trading volume soared almost 40 times to 60.77 million shares, compared with the 200-day average volume of 1.53 million.

SMRT earlier this month proposed to acquire the remaining 36% stake in N’Osairis Technology Solutions Sdn Bhd (NTS) for RM72 million from Permata Kirana Sdn Bhd, in a move to streamline its operations and purely focus on the technology business.

NTS, an information technology managed service provider, is currently a 64%-owned subsidiary of SMRT. NTS registered a net profit of RM20.11 million on a revenue of RM51.1 million for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2021.

Meanwhile, SMRT had also proposed to dispose of its entire stake in SMR Education Sdn Bhd to Special Flagship Holdings Sdn Bhd (SFHSB) for RM49.46 million cash, allowing the group to exit its education business that has not been a strong contributor to the group's financials.

The two proposals are deemed as related party transactions, as Tan Sri Palan Ramanathan Chettiar and his spouse Puan Sri Kamatchi Valliammai Malayandi are major shareholders of SMRT.

Their son Maha Ramanathan Palan, who is the group managing director of SMRT, is also a shareholder of NTS and Permata Kirana. SFHSB is 99.99%-controlled by Palan, while the remaining 0.01% equity interest is held by Kamatchi.

SMRT posted a sevenfold rise in net profit to RM8.79 million for the nine months ended Sept 30, 2022 (9MFY2022), up from RM1.23 million a year earlier. Turnover also rose to RM133.61 million in 9MFY2022, from RM110.21 million a year earlier.