KUALA LUMPUR: Optimax Holdings Bhd, an ACE market-listed private eye specialist service provider, is drawing up plans to establish a more substantial presence in the East Malaysian states.
Chief executive officer Sandy Tan said the company will focus on Sabah, as it does not have a presence in the state, to expand its ambulatory care centres (ACC) by continuing with the two approaches of either fully owning these centres or jointly owned with minority equity participation from resident doctors.
While she did not provide any specific timeline, the company would soon proceed with the expansion plans due to recent relaxation on interstate travel.
"In East Malaysia, we are confident that there will also be an increase in patients for our services, and we estimated that profit margins there will see an increase, same as all our ACC with the relaxation of the movement restrictions," she told The New Straits Times.
To a question on Optimax's plan to expand its network of ACC by the end of this year, Sandy said the company has 12 ACCs and one specialist hospital to date and is planning to expand its network of ACCs in Malaysia since the beginning of 2021.
"With the current reopening of the economy, Optimax will be continuing to look out for potential expansion towards the East Coast, Sabah, to expand our geographical footprint further and reach.
"Additionally, in Peninsular Malaysia, we had identified a potential ACC location at Bahau, Negeri Sembilan. The Bahau operation would be a small ACC with one resident doctor.
"The initial timeline for the renovation works was to begin in the third quarter (Q3) ended 30 June 2020 (FY21), but it was further delay due to the Movement Control Order (MCO).
"We estimated that the complete works of the ACCs will now be completed by early first quarter (Q1) FY22," she said.
While the company is constantly looking for ways to expand its network of ACCs, she stated that Optimax does not have a set number of centres planned for this year and no capital expenditure (capex) planned for the next few years.
"As for the budget allocation for the next few years, we will also continue to stick with the plan that we have set during our initial public offering (IPO), where we have allocated RM10.4 million from the proceeds to utilise for our future plans.
"Currently, we still have the resources from our IPO proceed. Therefore we will continue to utilise it for our plans in the foreseeable future," Sandy said.
On recent earnings, Optimax posted a revenue of RM18.03 million for the second quarter (Q2) ended 30 June 2020 (FY21), an increase of 89.04 per cent from the RM9.54 million same quarter last year.
Both profit before tax (PBT) and profit after tax (PAT) also showed improvement of 1579.66 per cent and 1668.64 per cent at RM2.97 million and RM2.09 million respectively, as
compared to RM177,000 and RM118,000 for Q2 FY20.
Central Peninsular Malaysia remains the most significant revenue contributor, providing RM10.87 million or 60.25 per cent of total revenue for Q2 FY21.
South Peninsular Malaysia and North Peninsular Malaysia contributed RM3.73 million and RM3.01 million or 20.68 per cent and 16.67 per cent respectively to the total revenue, while East Malaysia contributed RM432,000 million or
2.40 per cent of the total revenue.
For the six-month (6M) FY21 period, Optimax posted a revenue of RM32.52 million, while PBT and PAT for the period were RM5.06 million and RM3.50 million, respectively.
Moving forward, Sanday said the company intends to purchase ophthalmological equipment and tools for existing centres to provide eye specialist services as part of its expansion plans.
"The new ophthalmological equipment and tools that we intend to purchase will be used to upgrade existing equipment, increase our services offering, and expand our capacity," she said.
Sandy is also confident that the easing of the movement restrictions across Malaysia will result in the recovery of the traffic footfall of patients, including patients of refractive surgeries and cataract surgeries that have earlier postpone their procedures.
"We believe that we can attract new patients as well through our ongoing marketing efforts in promoting Optimax's deals and offers through online platforms, which will inform and attract new customers to try our services.
"The percentage of increase in patients will be higher by the end of this quarter, due to the relaxation of restrictions, and all our ACC will be fully operational with 100 per cent of our total staff have been fully vaccinated," she said.
