The New Straits
Times , 25 October 2004
SIB upbeat on group's
performance
SCIENTEX Inc Bhd (SIB), parent of Scientex
Packaging Bhd (Scipack), sees the bulk of its earnings from the industrial
packaging subsidiary.
"Naturally, SIB's earnings will come from Scipack as the former owns a 62 per
cent stake in the industrial packaging company," said its managing director Lim
Peng Jin.
He, however, is also equally excited about the growth of SIB's two other
divisions, property development and polymer.
Lim said the company has about 340ha in Johor. Of this, SIB has to date
developed about 80ha and has completed some 2,000 units of houses, a mixture of
two-storey houses, apartments and shophouses.
He added that the company did very well before the Asian financial crisis, but
as the property business slowed down, SIB had to change its strategy to focus on
more affordable housing products.
"Our strategy paid off and property development contributed about RM11 million
(for the financial year ended July 31 2004 )," Lim said.
He also sees the company continuing to build houses with prices ranging from
RM80,000 to RM120,000 in future.
The company plans to build 800 to 1,000 units of affordable houses per year.
Lim said SIB will continue to focus on the medium segment which has a larger
population.
Lim attributed SIB's success in Johor to the good location of its landbank in
Pasir Gudang. "We also change ourselves to suit the market demand," he added.
Lim said the company also plans to grow its polymer business and aims to be the
leading supplier in Asia Pacific for the automotive sector.
SIB's polymer division produces and supplies a wide range of polymer-based
products such as PVC leather and sheet, skin materials for automotive interiors
specially for dashboards, door trims and headlining.
In April last year, SIB's subsidiary Scientex Polymer Sdn Bhd bought the entire
stake in Scientex Polymer ( Japan ) Co Ltd which specialises in producing carpet
mats for motor vehicles. Its main customers include Nissan, Toyota , Daihatsu
and Suzuki.
To date, SIB has two factories - one in Vietnam and the other in Malaysia -
producing carpet mats.
Lim said he is bullish on the prospects for the polymer division as Japan is a
big car market with about 7 million cars produced annually.
SIB supplied about 250,000 carpet mat sets to its clients in Japan last year,
representing a 4 per cent market share.