02/07/2014 (The Star) - Maybank Investment Bank Bhd, the stabilising manager for Icon Offshore Bhd, has been buying shares in the latter over the past two days.

It bought 1.1 million shares in Icon at RM1.85 each on Monday and a further 9.87 million shares at the same price for stabilising purposes yesterday.

Affin Investment Bank Bhd, the stabilising manager for Boustead Plantations Bhd, also purchased 247,100 Boustead Plantations shares at RM1.60 each yesterday.

Icon closed the day up one sen at RM1.86 on volume of 14.09 million shares, while Boustead Plantations closed down two sen to RM1.60 on volume of 4.57 million shares.

On June 25, Icon made its Main Market debut at RM2.10, which was a 13.5% premium to its initial public offering (IPO) reference price of RM1.85. The company raised RM1.09bil via the listing.

On June 26, the plantation arm of Boustead Holdings Bhd opened at RM1.66, a six sen premium over its offer price of RM1.60, raising RM1.05bil.

Icon’s IPO has nine cornerstone investors, including Tan Sri Chua Ma Yu, Lembaga Tabung Haji, Permodalan Nasional Bhd, Hwang Investment Management Bhd, Maybank Asset Management Sdn Bhd and Nomura Asset Management Sdn Bhd.

Meanwhile, Hong Leong Research valued Boustead Plantations at RM1.63, based on sum-of-parts valuation of 17 times its 2015 core net profit for the company’s plantation business.

It is projecting Boustead Plantations’ core net profit in 2014 to jump by 74.7% to RM119.9mil, mainly on the back of higher average crude palm oil price assumption of RM2,700 per tonne, while core net profit in 2015 is expected to remain flattish at RM116.4mil.