PETALING JAYA: PUC Bhd emerged as the second most traded stock on Bursa Malaysia yesterday and its share price increased by 6% on news that Genting Plantations Bhd is joining a bid with the former for a digital banking licence.

       In just several minutes after the market opened for trading, the stock jumped to an intraday high of 21 sen, or over 27% from the previous day’s closing price.

       However, by the time the market closed at 5pm, it had pared most of its gain and settled at 17.5 sen, or 6.06% higher than a day earlier.A total of 305.9 million shares changed hands yesterday.

       The sudden investor interest in media and advertising company PUC was triggered by the announcement that Genting Plantations – the plantation arm of the Genting group – would acquire a 10% stake in PUC via a private placement exercise.

       PUC has entered into conditional subscription agreements with three companies in relation to its proposed private placement of 375.06 million new shares at 12.5 sen per share, to raise RM46.88mil.

       The three companies are GPVF Sdn Bhd, Matrix Edge Venture Sdn Bhd (MEV) and KH Lim Capital Sdn Bhd (KHLC).

       GPVF, which is subscribing 162.53 million shares for RM20.31mil, is a wholly-owned unit of Kenyalang Borneo Sdn Bhd.

       According to Genting Plantations’ annual report, Kenyalang is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the former.

       MEV is subscribing to 125.02 million PUC shares, representing 7.69% of the company’s enlarged share capital.

       KHLC is subscribing to 87.51 million shares or 5.38% in PUC post-issuance.

       PUC aims to use the RM46.88mil raised for potential acquisitions or investments (32%), upgrading of its Presto Digital platform software (21.3%), marketing for Presto Digital (10.6%) and working capital (35%).