The Straits Times / The Business Times News on Cosco

Cosco exec's big buy goes against the tide

A TOP manager of China-based ship-repairer Cosco Corporation has made a splash by buying up a swag of the company's shares, just days after other directors had been busily paring their stakes.

Filings with the Singapore Exchange show that Mr Lee Fook Choy, a director of subsidiary, Cosco Marine Engineering, forked out about $2.9 million to buy 1.23 million Cosco shares yesterday.

His buy came in the wake of a spate of sales by other company insiders. These included independent director Wang Kai Yuen whose wife, Ms Mina Chan Sze Ming, sold her entire stake of 540,000 shares recently.

Still, Mr Lee's big purchase may give a shot in the arm to the ship-repairer whose price has fallen 4.4 per cent since the start of last week.

Yesterday, Cosco ended unchanged at $2.46, on a volume of 6.4 million shares.

In a recent report on Cosco, CIMB-GK Research said that it continues to like the stock 'as a proxy for the buoyant ship repair market in China'.

CIMB-GK also expected Cosco to make more acquisitions to position it as a major global player in ship-repair.

Cosco is also expected to post strong earnings in the second half of the year, as it benefits from ship conversion jobs in its Chinese shipyards.

CIMB-GK kept its 'outperform' call on Cosco with a price target of $2.78. It expects Cosco to post a profit of $136.6 million for this year and a profit of $184.8 million for next year.