No acquisition plans for now, says TA Enterprise

UNMOVED: MD says company prefers to grow on its own, unhappy over pinching of remisiers within the industry.

TA Enterprise Bhd, a property and stockbroking group, has no plans to buy another stockbroker amid the current spate of merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in the industry.

"Not really," said managing director Datin Alicia Tiah when asked if the group would consider any M&A following the latest industry moves.

"The only thing I feel unhappy about is the pinching of remisiers in the industry. I hope this unhealthy trend will stop soon. By pinching people, there's no growth," she remarked.

While the group cannot rule out M&A activities entirely, it would prefer to grow on its own, she told reporters here yesterday after its stockbroking unit, TA Securities Holdings Bhd, became the first broker in the country to migrate to an advanced electronic trading platform.

Stock exchange operator Bursa Malaysia Bhd requires all brokers to migrate to that platform by end September.

The platform makes it possible for the group to open up branches at a cheaper cost than before.

"It's more worthwhile to open up branches now with the lower cost. We don't need to have costly servers and with everything now centralised, you save about RM500,000 per branch.

"Therefore, we are looking at opening more branches," she said.

However, she declined to say how many it planned to open.

It currently has seven branches in the country.

TA Securities is ranked ninth among brokers in terms of market share of value of trades in the stock market for the year to end-April.

It risks becoming less competitive as rivals merge and garner stronger market share and also due to rampant broker-pinching.

Banking group RHB, which earlier this year proposed to buy OSK Investment Bank, is expected to become the country's top stockbroker once the deal goes through, unseating CIMB Investment Bank.

Investments banks (IBs) K&N Kenanga Holdings Bhd and ECM Libra Financial Group Bhd are also widely expected to announce a merger soon, which would likely see them become the second largest stockbroker by trading value.

"These are essentially IBs, whereas we are not an IB. We are just a broker that provides financial services. I believe we each have our own strengths," Tiah said.

Stockbroking accounts for between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of the group's total revenue. TA Enterprise saw a 16 per cent rise in net profit to RM94.7 million last year.

By ADELINE PAUL RAJ, btimes.com.my