Hot stock: Parkson Retail Asia surges as much as 16.2% upon watch list exit

SHARES of Parkson Retail Asia spiked on Friday (Oct 4) morning amid heavy trading volumes, following an announcement by the mainboard-listed department store retailer that it was exiting the Singapore Exchange (SGX) watch list after more than four years.

As at 9.04 am, the counter had risen 16.2 per cent or S$0.011 to S$0.079 with 7.4 million of its securities changing hands, well above the 2.5 million average.

Parkson Retail closed S$0.007 or 10.3 per cent higher at S$0.075 on Friday, after 20.1 million shares worth S$1.5 million changed hands.

No married deals were recorded in early trade, according to ShareInvestor data. 

The company was placed on the SGX watch list in December 2019, for having failed to meet the listing rule requiring it to record a consolidated pre-tax profit based on audited full-year consolidated accounts.

Under this rule, the issuer should also have had an average daily market capitalisation of S$40 million or more in the preceding six months.

Following the expiry of its 36-month cure period to meet these requirements, the company was granted extensions to meet these requirements in 2022 and 2023.

Parkson Retail announced in August that it had submitted its application to exit the watch list after having attained profit before tax of S$23.3 million for the six months ended June 2024.

Its exit application was granted on Oct 2, and announced by the company on Friday morning, ahead of the market open.