KUALA LUMPUR: Bumi Armada Bhd's shares on Bursa Malaysia was down this morning, declining two sen to RM1.36 as at 10.27 am, on the back of the weak financial results posted yesterday. A total of 2.871 million lots changed hands.
For the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2014, Bumi Armada's pre-tax profit fell to RM127.712 million from RM138.808 million in the same quarter a year ago.
Revenue, however, rose to RM636.509 million from RM546.305 million.
For the nine months, revenue rose 11.8 per cent year-on-year to RM1.7 billion, while core earnings amounted at RM249.4 million.
RHB Research Institute said the results came below expectations.
The research house has cut its financial year (FY) 2014 and 2015 earnings forecasts on Bumi Armada by 21 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.
It downgraded recommendation on the company to "neutral" with a lower target price of RM1.47.
Another research firm, Hong Leong Investment Bank (HLIB) said Bumi Armada's FY14 earnings was adjusted downward by seven per cent to reflect slower earnings recognition for its Kraken and Angola projects under finance lease and lower margin for transport and installation.
However, it said the underlying cash flow for both the floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) projects remained unchanged.
HLIB has maintained its "buy" call on Bumi Armada and reduced the target price to RM1.74 from RM2.06 earlier.
-- BERNAMA