NEWLY LISTED OCEAN FRESH LOOKING EASTWARD FOR FISH SUPPLY
KUALA LUMPUR (July 4): Ocean Fresh Bhd (KL:OFB), which surged 204% in its trading debut on Thursday, said that the company is planning to expand its fish supply in East Malaysia as the region has abundant fish resources.
“The coast in Eastern Malaysia is very long and there is plenty of supply of fish, and certainly there is an area that we have identified that we will procure supply from them,” executive director Teo Chee Han said at a press conference after the listing.
The company has sourced its seafood supplies from Sabah in the last five years, while it recently has collaborated with a supplier in Kudat, Sabah for supply. Besides Malaysia, Ocean Fresh also sources its seafood products from overseas suppliers hailing from India, Indonesia, China and the Philippines.
Ocean Fresh is principally involved in the processing and trading of frozen seafood products, as well as the provision of frozen seafood processing services to its customers in Malaysia, Türkiye, China, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan.
The company raised RM14.01 million from its initial public offering (IPO) on the ACE Market, and plans to utilise RM8 million for its new cold storage facility in Kuantan and RM2.51 million for working capital requirements and will spend RM3.5 million on estimated listing expenses.
Ocean Fresh is also hiring more local workers to reduce the heavy reliance on foreign labour, which make up 61.5% of its total production workforce, executive director Kee Wan Chum said at the same press conference.
“From time to time, we are trying to have more local workers,” he added.
At noon break, shares of Ocean Fresh were 53 sen or 189.29% higher at 81 sen on Wednesday, with 120.44 million shares changing hands and giving the group a market capitalisation of RM170.2 million.
Read also: Ocean Fresh shares more than double on ACE Market debut Ocean Fresh IPO shares oversubscribed 76.22 times by public ACE Market-bound Ocean Fresh valued between 35 and 54 sen ACE Market-bound Ocean Fresh to expand storage facility to tap better prices, more markets ACE Market-bound Ocean Fresh seeks to raise RM14.01m from IPO