KPJ Healthcare Berhad

KPJ an excellent choice for long-term investment, says OSK Research

KPJ Healthcare Bhd is an excellent choice for long-term investment and portfolio balancing offering growth potential in a defensive sector, says OSK Research Sdn Bhd.

KPJ Healthcare Bhd is an excellent choice for long-term investment and portfolio balancing offering growth potential in a defensive sector, says OSK Research Sdn Bhd.

In a note yesterday, OSK said it would maintain its Buy call on KPJ Healthcare at a lower fair value of RM5.21 from RM5.37 previously as its first half (1H) net profit was below its forecast and consensus expectation.

"With revenue and pretax profit coming in line with our expectation, the underperformance was largely due to higher-than-expected tax rate and minority interest charges," it said.

OSK said for the 1H financial year 2011, its new hospital in Indonesia was still in the red with a pretax loss of RM4.39 million, which was within expectations as well as it was still early in gestation period.

Bernama.