Q1-FY2026 of Scientex Berhad

 

Scientex Berhad (SCIENTX) involves in 2 core businesses:

(a)   plastic film and

(b)   property development (affordable housing).

 

At the time of writing on 24 Dec 2025, the share price of SCIENTX dropped by 20% YTD. This has caught my attention, as SCIENTX is a good company after all, from my point of view.

 

Figure 1: Share price of Scientex Berhad up to 24 Dec 2025

 

Upon extracting the operating profits of the two core business segments of SCIENTX, I found the following:

(1) Operating profit of the plastic film manufacturing segment (see Figure 2) is declining since Q2-FY2024. This could be due to the profit margin compression as shown in Figure 3. However, it seems that the profit margin started to pick up again since Q3-FY2025, which is an encouraging sign.

Figure 2: Quarter operating profit of the manufacturing segment

 

Figure 3: Quarter operating profit margin (%) of the manufacturing segment

(2) On the other hand, the property segment of SCIENTX is performing exceptionally well. This could be attributed to the aggressive land bank acquisition performed earlier and launching of affordable homes which has drawn tremendous interest from the public. It is interesting to note that Q4 of each financial year is normally the best quarter in terms of profit for this segment.

Figure 4: Quarter operating profit of the property development segment

Upon comparing the performance of these 2 business segments, I found that property development draws a very good profit margin of ~30%, vs. ~5-10% for plastic film manufacturing. No wonder SCIENTX focuses so much on land bank acquisition to grow its property development segment.

SCIENTX has just released its quarter Q1-FY2026 report, showing growth in both business segments. Now, most countries are cutting interest rates to spur economic growth. Hopefully, this could increase the order from the manufacturing segment of SCIENTX again.

 

Valuation

Is it worth for investing in Scientex Berhad now? Let us work on the answer.

 

The core profit is calculated after adding/deducting the unrealized forex loss/gain into the reported net profit attributed to shareholders. To get the fair PE value for SCIENTX, I used the PE values on the recent years 2019-2021, 2023-2024, as these years show year-on-year profit growth. For further explanation on this method, you may refer to my earlier post in YSPSAH.

 

The average and median values of the PE values from those chosen years are then determined. Here, the median value is chosen as it is smaller than the average value. Therefore, the estimated fair PE of SCIENTX is ~ 12.45.

 

Assuming the core EPS of SCIENTX in the upcoming FY2026 is same as that in FY2025 (i.e. no growth, core EPS = RM0.34), the current PE based on the current closing price of RM3.50 is PE = 3.50/0.34 = 10.29. The margin of safety (MOS) is (12.45-10.29)/10.29*100% = 21%. Personally, it is quite attractive.

 

Hopefully, the EPS of SCIENTX could improve in FY2026 (> RM0.34 EPS). If that happens, I believe the market would re-rate the PER of SCIENTX again.

 

Figure 5: Core profit and PER of SCIENTX

Why value investing is simple but difficult?

All of us know Warren Buffet, the iconic figure of value investing.

Warren Buffet always share his ways of investing in public. The whole world knows about his method of investing. Nothing secretive about it. 

But, why general public is unable to replicate his investing style, and success?

Before answering this question, let me talk about exercise.

All of us know exercise is good for health. But, out of 100 peoples, how many of them exercise regularly? I do not have the exact number, but I guess the number is not many, at least from my group of friends who seldom exercise. Rather, most people would take supplements to stay healthy. Easier and faster, according to them.

Let me make an analogy:

Exercise = Value Investing

Health = Making money

Taking supplements = Speculation, hit-and-run

Exercise needs perseverance, patience to succeed.

Most peoples cannot bear with the enormous time and effort needed to make money in stock market. A faster technique is more attractive for them.

That's the reason why most people would end up becoming a speculator, chasing hot thematic stocks to make fast money. They earn big, and may lost big too.

So, is value investing (exercise) difficult for you?

When to buy, when to sell?

 

I must admit that I seldom read books all this while.

But thing starts to change from year 2020 (MCO time) onwards, where I have spent time reading a lot of stock investment books. In fact, I started investing since year 2009. However, I seldom spend time in looking for undervalued stocks, not to mention the methods to determine the intrinsic value of a stock. Therefore, my portfolio hardly grows before year 2020.

 

In 2020, I have read a book entitled “Value Investing in Growth Companies” written by Rusmin and Victor, which has inspired me a lot.

 

The basic (yet key) questions of any investor are:

 

When to buy a stock?

When to sell a stock?

 

Rusmin and Victor have put forward a very simple way to answer the questions above. That is, PUZZLE.

 

The decision to buy/sell a stock is dependent on the availability of 4 puzzles. 

These 4 puzzles are:

Business

(Is business doing good in long term?)

 

Management

(Is the management team capable and reliable?)

 

Number

(Is the profit growing? Cash flow good?)

 

Valuation

(Is it cheap? Buy at discounted price please.)

 

So…

Question 1: When to buy a stock?

Answer: The 4 puzzles above are intact.

 

Question 2: When to sell a stock?

Answer: Either one of the 4 puzzles is broken.

 

I will remind my daughters on these puzzles.

Q2-2026 Quarter Result of Ajinomoto Malaysia

 

Today, I am going to walk you through another unpopular stock in KL Stock Exchange (KLSE), Ajinomoto Malaysia (or AJI). This company is well-known globally as a manufacturer of MSG. AJI focuses on markets in Malaysia (57%), Middle East (22%), and ASEAN countries (20%).

 

Frankly speaking, I seldom use MSG at home, as there are a lot of unproven negative perceptions on the use of MSG spreading around. Nevertheless, when I look at the annual sales figure of AJI, it seriously grasps my attention. See below:

Figure 1: Historical sales of Ajinomoto Malaysia

 

AJI sales has been growing consistently from the past 16 years. Impressive right? The revenue growth is even more explosive since 2023, as AJI has shifted its manufacturing base from Kuchai Lama to Bandar Enstek which enables the company to expand its manufacturing capacity. Figures 2 and 3 show the sales breakdown of the consumer and industrial business segments of AJI, respectively.

Figure 2: AJI revenue from consumer segment

Figure 3: AJI revenue from industrial segment

 

Seemingly, consumer segment plays a more crucial role in terms of revenue contribution of AJI, and it experiences a more significant growth (especially after FY2022) as compared to the industrial segment. There is a slight dip in sales from the consumer segment in 2021, which could be due to the lock-down during Covid period. Sometimes, I wonder that since many peoples do not consume MSG at home (or if they do, they will just use MSG secretly, without telling other people openly), how AJI is able to grow its business?? Well, my friend told me that most restaurants would still use it. Indeed, a few weeks ago, I saw a restaurant boss just bought a big pack of AJINOMOTO from 99Speedmart.

Note: There are various MSG brands in market now. For example, AJI-Noriki, AJI-Nazri, and other smaller brands. They could impose threat on AJINOMOTO as their selling prices are cheaper than AJINOMOTO. However, according to my Malay friend, a food stall owner, he still prefers AJINOMOTO because he needs a smaller amount of it compared to other brands to achieve a similar taste for his soup. This could be the advantage of AJINOMOTO.

 

Operating profit

Next, let us get into the historical data of AJI’s operating profit (or Earning Before Interest and Tax, EBIT). This number is not directly appearing in the annual report; however, you can look for it from the final quarter report (Q4) of each financial year (FY).

Figure 4: AJI historical operating profit (or EBIT)

 

Well, it is not trending in tandem with its revenue, isn’t it? This is particularly true during years 2021-2023. Management has attributed the drop in operating profits to several reasons:

FY2021 (closing in March 2021): The decrease in profit before tax was mainly due to lower revenue, higher advertising expenses, reduction in distribution from investment securities and interest income.

FY2022 (closing in March 2023): The decrease in profit before tax was mainly due to the hike in raw material prices and fuel costs, higher freight and transportation costs, increase in staff costs, depreciation, computer hardware and software maintenance and other operating expenses.

FY2023 (closing in March 2023): Increase of raw material prices, hardware and software maintenance costs and transitional costs from factory relocation to the Company’s new factory in Bandar Enstek.

 

The raw materials of AJINOMOTO are mainly tapioca, corn and sugarcane. As seen below, indeed, the corn and sugar prices stayed at high level within 2022-2024. Nevertheless, these prices have dropped since 2024.

 

Figure 5: Historical sugar price (from: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/sugar)

Figure 6: Historical corn price (https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/corn)

 

Core profit

The core profit of AJI is shown below.

Figure 7: Core profit of AJI

Please take note the following calculation method of core profit, where I have adjusted the reported profit attributed to shareholders (i.e.  P) accordingly, by:

(1)   Adding/Subtracting P with the unrealized forex loss/gain.

(2)   Deducting P with the one-time gain (disposal of assets) of RM394 million in FY2024 (Kuchai Lama land) and RM145 million in FY2017.

(3)   Deducting P with the one-time tax incentive of RM11.6 million in FY2023.

(4)   Core profit calculation of FY2025 needs more explanation. In Q4-FY 2025, AJI has declared a loss due to big spending on advertisement. See Figure 8. The management did not reveal the exact cost of this spending. However, I noticed that its net profit margin (NP Margin from Q1-Q3-FY2025) is normally around 10%. Therefore, I assume that Q4-FY2025 would have a profit of RM149.7 million (i.e. revenue in Q4-FY2025) x 10% = RM14.9 million. Adding this RM14.9 million with the net profits from Q1-Q3-FY2025 would give me around RM 72 million of net profit. Adding this RM 72 million with the unrealized forex loss of RM 1.2 million would give around RM 73 million of core profit, the highest since 2009.

 

Figure 8: Quarter profit in FY2025 of AJI. (Taken from https://klse.i3investor.com/web/stock/financial-quarter/2658)

 

Any other catalysts for AJI?

One may forecast the future manufacturing activity by looking at the value of raw materials in the inventory. From the raw material value obtained from the inventory section outlined in the annual report of AJI, I can see that the amount of the raw material purchased in FY2025 is the highest since FY2010. This could indicate the Management is purchasing more raw materials to boost up its future manufacturing activities, which is a good sign.

Figure 9: Raw material values (in RM) of AJI

 

The sales recorded at different markets are shown in Figure 10. Seemingly, middle east market is experiencing the most rapid growth (since FY2023) as compared to the remaining two markets in Malaysia and ASEAN. From the explosive growth trend of consumer segment (see Figure 2), I guess the middle east market focuses more on consumer-based AJI products. Therefore, the middle east market could be the potential market for the next phase of growth of AJI. After all, the products of AJI are halal certified (I heard from my friend saying that AJINOMOTO Malaysia is the first company in Malaysia that was granted with Jakim Halal certification à Need to double check).

 

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 10: Revenues contributed by (a) Malaysia; (b) Middle East and (c) ASEAN countries.

 

Worth for investment at current price?

It is time for valuation.

In fact, it is a bit tricky to determine the fair core PER value of AJI as its profit swing is quite wild since FY2021. If we get the fair core PER directly based on the most recent N-years core PER values (say N = 4 years or 5 years), one may end up with an exceptionally high PER, which is meaningless. For example, in FY2024, the core PER is ~180, as the core profit reported is low (huge chunk of reported profit is coming from asset sales in Kuchai Lama, which is one-off and non-recurring).

 

To resolve this issue, I have decided to choose the core PER values from those years where both the “profit attributed to equity holder” and “core profit” undergo year-on-year growth. The years that satisfy my requirement are: 2014-2016, 2020. There are a few years before 2014 that satisfy my requirement; however, I ignored them as I worry that the core PER data could be too old to yield any meaningful impact on the valuation to date. The averaged or median value of the core PER values of the chosen years are then determined. Finally, the fair PER value of AJI is the calculated based on the minimum between the averaged and the median values (for conservative purpose), i.e. fair PER ~ 12.84 (averaged value is taken).

Figure 11: Trend of core PER of AJI

 

Yes, we have determined the fair core PER of AJI.

The next question is: What is the current core PER of AJI?

 

To start the calculation, the rolling four quarters Earnings per Share (EPS) is firstly computed by adding the profits of the most recent 4 quarters as shown in the green box (Figure 12). Note that the negative profit RM -6902000 is normalized to RM 14979000 (i.e. 10% of quarter revenue to reflect the one-off advertisement cost, see explanation earlier). The rolling four quarters net profit is ~ RM77.6 million. Divide the net profit by the number of shares of 60.8 million, the EPS is ~ RM 1.276. Considering the closing price on 22 Dec 2025 of RM 13.64, the current PER is 13.64/1.27 = 10.69.

 

Figure 12: Quarter result of AJI (https://klse.i3investor.com/web/stock/financial-quarter/2658)

 

Is the current AJI share price of RM 13.64 attractive?

For investment, we are looking for Margin of Safety (MOS), an idea advocated by Warren Buffet. As value investor, we look for a safe investment to minimize risk, as always. Typically, MOS of 20% or more is considered attractive for me. For AJI traded at current level, MOS = (fair core PER – current core PER)/current core PER * 100% = (12.84-10.69)/10.69 = 20%, which is quite attractive. If AJI could grow further its EPS, the MOS is even higher, and it is definitely a good investment out there for all value investors.

 

Note: MYR is strengthening against USD in Q3-FY2026. Therefore, AJI could book an unrealized forex loss in the upcoming quarter (vs RM 3.6 million of unrealized forex gain in Q3-FY2025). This may cause the reported profit in the upcoming quarter of Q3-FY2026 to be lower than that of Q3-FY2025.

 

AEONCR - Q3-FY2026 result is getting better?

AEONCR has just released its Q3-FY2026 report. Indeed, it is an encouraging set of financial result as compared to its Q1 and Q2 results reported earlier. Earlier, the Management has insisted that the 2^nd half of FY2026 would be better in terms of financial performance.

As quoted from source: https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/767216

Maeda said stricter underwriting is already yielding results, with early signs of improved repayment collections. However, the consumer financier's near-term earnings are expected to remain under pressure due to elevated credit costs.

"Q2 (second quarter) is still challenging, but from Q3 and Q4 our performance will be better," he told The Edge after the signing ceremony between AEON Credit and its sister company AEON Co (M) Bhd on Tuesday to establish a joint venture (JV) entity.

Indeed, it happened. The year-to-date (YTD), or 9M-FY2026 net profit is ~RM242M, vs RM 240M reported in 9M-FY2025, a marginal increase of < 1%.

Figure 1: Quarter result Q3-FY2026 of AEONCR

 

AEONCR was once a darling for many investors before Covid. It has recorded uninterrupted net profit growth from 2011-2019, see Figure 2 below:

 

Figure 2: Historical net profit of AEONCR

 

However, after Covid, the net profit seems a bit bumpy, which I believe it is due to two reasons:

    (1) Huge impairment loss and write-off. Since FY2024, AEONCR has been very aggressive in expanding its loan book as shown in Figure 3. This can be witnessed from the relatively high growth of its gross financing receivable during that period. Unfortunately, the write-off is stubbornly high as well (see Figure 4 below). Since Q1-FY2024, the percentage of write-off on financing receivable is above 1.2% of total gross receivable consistently. According to the Management, the high write-off is coming from youths (< 25 years) and low-income customer category. Thankfully, there is a sign of down trending of the percentage recently.

 

Figure 3: Quarter gross financing receivable (in billion) of Aeon Credit

 

Figure 4: Historical percentage of write-off from the gross financing receivable of Aeon Credit

      (2) Loss from Aeon Bank. Since Q4-FY2024, the loss of Aeon Bank (associate of Aeon Credit where it holds 50% of stake in Aeon Bank) has been included in the income statement of AEONCR. A lot of peoples argued that this is the main reason dragging the net profit of AEONCR. However, if we look at the quarterly loss of Aeon Bank contributed to AEONCR, it hovers between RM 12 million – RM 22 million. On the other hand, the quarterly write-off declared is ranging between RM170 million – RM 200 million. Therefore, I strongly believe that the recent underperformance of Aeon Credit is mainly due to the huge quarterly write-off. Nevertheless, AEON Credit also indicated that AEON Bank is unlikely to achieve profitability before FY2029, in line with a previous guidance stating it projected losses to peak in FY2026, ease in FY2027 and break even in FY2028. (Source: https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/761238)

Hopefully, AEONCR could report better profit thereafter.

 

How AEONCR safeguard its asset quality?

Firstly, from the quarterly presentation Q3-FY2026 of AEONCR, the financing volumes coming from (a) Easy Payment and (b) Personal Financing segments have declined QoQ. But fear not, it is the strategic shift of AEONCR toward higher-quality asset portfolio acquisition, focusing on customers with good credit scores. So, I guess the youth (<25 years) and low-income groups that have been causing huge impairment loss/write-off mentioned earlier are mainly coming from the Easy Payment and Personal Financing business segments. The Management has started to get more prudent in lending in these two segments, in other words.

 

Figure 5: Performance of various business segments of AEONCR

 

Secondly, it seems that the collection performance has improved since July 2025. This would help reducing the impairment loss/write-off in the future.

 

Figure 6: Collection ratio of AEONCR

 

Valuation?

Again, I am using the 5-years averaged PER to derive the fair PER value of AEONCR. However, instead of taking the PER values from the most recent 5 years directly, I only pick the PER value of the year that the reported profit has experienced year-on-year growth. The most recent 5 years that fit to my criterion are 2018-2019, and 2022-2024. Based on these 5 PER values, the mean and median values are computed and it is found that they are quite similar, i.e. ~ 9.6.

 

As on 22 Dec 2025, the share price is around RM5.65. Considering the rolling 4Q EPS of RM0.73, the current PER is 7.74. The Margin of Safety (MOS) is around 24%. If the business of AEONCR is improving, I believe it would deserve a higher PER. Then, the Davis Double Play effect would emerge, pushing the share price to a higher level.

 

One thing to take note. The upcoming quarter result Q4-FY2026 could be weaker than that of Q4-FY2025 as the latter has booked in a relatively huge write-back of 88 million (vs 50 million in Q3-FY2026). If it occurs, the share price might dip again as short-sighted investors might lock in profit/cut loss. Long-term investors may accumulate the share at a cheaper price then.

 

Figure 7: Historical PER and net profit of AEONCR

Ringgit is getting stronger vs. USD in 2025 – Impact on YSPSAH

Not many peoples are aware of this pharmaceutical company that manufactures generic drugs, i.e., YSPSAH that was established in Malaysia since 1987. It is a Taiwanese pharmaceutical company based in Bangi, Selangor. The company was listed in KLSE since 2004.

From the annual report 2024 of YSPSAH, the overseas revenue consists of almost 30% of the total revenue reported. Indeed, the weightage of overseas sales is quite heavy as compared to its competitors. I think it is part of the strategy of the management team, as they are aware that Malaysian market is relatively small as compared to other ASEAN countries and the local market is dominated by bigger players such as DPHARMA and AHEALTH.

 

But why this company grasps my attention? Firstly, it is cheap, not in price though, but in terms of valuation. Secondly, the traded share price on 19 Dec 2025 is discounted at almost 28% from its book value. Thirdly, strong operating and free cash flows, allowing the company to pay consistent dividend. At the time of writing, the traded share price is RM2.09, which translates to RM0.11/RM2.09 = 5.3% dividend yield.

 

The historical share price of YSPSAH (up to 19 Dec 2025) is shown below:

Figure 1: Historical share price of YSPSAH

Why is its share price plunging since June 2024? Well, I believe it is due to the cutting of interest rate in the US, thus weakening the USD against other currencies. From June 2024 to Dec 2025 (time of writing), USD has weakened against MYR from RM4.7/USD to RM 4.08/USD. See below:

 

Figure 2: USD to MYR rate

 

As an export-based pharmaceutical company like YSPSAH, foreign exchange loss is inevitable in the current condition. The foreign exchange loss would appear in the income statement (e.g. in Other Expenses), decreasing the reported bottom line (profit attributed to shareholder). The historical reported profit attributed to shareholder of YSPSAH looks like this:

Figure 3: Reported profits of YSPSAH

 

As seen from Figure 3 above, the reported profits experienced a more apparent fluctuation since 2016. However, do note that the reported profit has included non-cash item such as unrealized foreign exchange (forex) loss. As it is a non-cash item, it should be added back to the reported earning in Figure 3 to come out with the “core profit” of the company, which can provide a clearer, more consistent picture of a company's ongoing, primary business health. The historical core profit (after adding/deducting the forex loss/gain, respectively, with the reported profit) is shown below:

Figure 4: Core profits (after including the effect of unrealized forex gain/loss) of YSPSAH

 

As shown in Figure 4, the core profit is trending upwards generally, except during the Covid lock-down period. So, based on Figure 4, I believe that the core business of YSPSAH is still growing.

 

So, now we know the business of YSPSAH is still doing fine. The next question is its valuation. Can we accumulate the shares?

 

Following the approach of HLIB in valuing DKSH, the fair PE ratio (PER) based on core earnings per share (core EPS) is used. The historical PER based on core EPS, or the core PER, is shown in Figure 5 (last sub-figure at the bottom). 

Figure 5: Selection of core PER values

Averaging Process: Use of 5-year average PER to estimate the fair PER of a company

Many investors, including my respected investment guru (cold eye) advocated the use of 5-year average PER (some used median value) as the method to estimate the fair PER of a company. It is one of the relative valuation methods which is quite helpful. However, in 2024 (and even 2025), the share price of YSPSAH is depressed (due to low reported earnings, see Figures 1 & 3) regardless of the strengthening of its core profit (Figure 2). Hence, the core PER value of YSPSAH in 2024 is relatively low, which might not reflect the true valuation of the company. On the  other hand, in 2021, the core PER is very high as the company reported very weak earnings during the Covid period. 

Therefore, instead of taking the core PER directly from the most recent 5-years  (as what most peoples did) for the averaging process, the PER values used to perform the averaging must be selected carefully to get the fair PER of a company, from my point of view. My modified criterion is below:

To get the averaged core PER of a company, the core PER values should be obtained only from those years where both reported and core earnings are trending upward year on year. This is to make sure there is a close valuation alignment between the market perception (mainly based on reported EPS) and the core business operation (based on core EPS).

The core PER values that satisfy the above criterion is highlighted in the red box shown in Figure 5, obtained from years 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2022. Averaging the core PER values from these years, the mean and median values are around 12.35 and 11.94, respectively. One may set the fair core PER of YSPSAH at 11.94 (on the conservative side).

 

The reported core EPS in year 2024 is RM 0.25. Based on the closing price as of 19 Dec 2025 (RM 2.09), the core PER is currently at 8.36 merely, a very undemanding valuation. The margin of safety [MOS = (11.94-8.36)/8.36] is around 43%!!

 

Is it a safe bet? 

In terms of valuation, it is very attractive obviously. However, as long as USD stays weak against MYR, I believe the market would not favour YSPSAH, although the core profit is strong. Nevertheless, this might be a good opportunity for any value investors out there to accumulate the shares of a good company at a cheap price, isn’t it? As value investors, our role is to merely monitor its core earning and ensure it stays resilient.