INDUSTRIAL park specialist AME Elite Consortium Bhd has been steadily building a name for itself as it develops its 10th location.
One could say that AME Elite is one of the companies that has successfully ridden Malaysia’s China+1 strategy, playing a key role as an infrastructure provider.
Its industrial parks, beginning with Johor and now expanding into Selangor and Penang, fit perfectly into Malaysia’s foreign direct investment uptrend, with foreign companies from the semiconductor, medical device, pharmaceutical and precision engineering sectors making up the bulk of its tenants.
The business, however, has its fair share of challenges, notes AME Elite executive director and group chief executive officer Dylan Tan.
While demand for the group’s industrial developments in Penang and Johor remains strong, customers are engaging in longer planning cycles for their projects, as tariff-related uncertainties ease.
“Earlier on, tariffs were the biggest push factor for quick take-up of factories and industrial hubs.
“Companies still want to establish a presence here, but as the tariff situation has moderated, they now have more time to evaluate their location options and negotiate for better pricing from developers.
“This extends the companies’ decision-making process,” he tells StarBiz 7.
Demand for industrial land and facilities is supported by the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone and the China+1 strategy, and increasingly by the expansion of the artificial intelligence data centre (DC) ecosystem in the country.
The growth of the latter is attracting companies along the DC supply chain, such as manufacturers of transceivers and cables, to set up operations in Malaysia, making them potential customers for AME Elite’s industrial parks.
Thus far, the DC segment has been more of a land play for AME, with the group benefitting from demand for industrial land from DC operators.
While it has previously considered venturing into DC construction, Tan says the group is not actively pursuing the segment for now, given the different resources and expertise required.
“We may have to compete with some of the Chinese contractors for DC construction. It can be a bit risky. We already have a lot of work as other industrial developments continue to grow,” he says.
Recall that AME Elite described itself as a construction and property group when it listed in 2019.
As at end-June 2026, the group had RM997.7mil in a combined construction order book and unbilled property sales.
The company saw a record net profit of RM284mil in financial year 2026 (FY26), up 208.4% year-on-year, although the strong performance was boosted by a RM209.84mil land sale to a date centre and RM65.9mil in fair value gains.
These outsized transactions will make it difficult for the company to match FY26’s earnings in FY27, though it is still expected to be “a good year” as the group realises its orderbook.
AME Elite maintains its target to hit RM1bil in annual revenue, which it expects to achieve in FY28.
While the group has built its reputation as a specialist in industrial property development, Tan says it remains equally focused on construction and is continuing to build up its team.
AME Elite has been adding to its project pipeline through a string of new projects and partnerships.
These include i-Park@Coalfields in Selangor, a collaboration with Taiwan-listed FIC Global Inc to support the expansion of its Malaysian advanced manufacturing subsidiary in Johor, and a new aerospace and medical device facility for China’s Hyatech at AME Elite’s i-TechValley industrial park in Johor.
Building industrial facilities for sectors such as aerospace, medical devices and semiconductors generally does not require significant additional investment.
Such projects also do not command higher margins. However, their more complex requirements can create opportunities for significantly higher contract values.
For now, AME Elite is not looking to specifically target any particular sector, with its remaining landbank spread across different locations.
That could change with its next sizeable landbank, where the group sees greater scope to work with potential partners and manufacturers from the outset and tailor the development to the needs of incoming companies.
AME Elite’s interest in working with landowners helps it reduce capital outlays for outright land purchases, a process that could also be fraught with lengthy negotiations.
This approach is not new for AME Elite. The group has previously undertaken other joint ventures (JVs), with the latest being its i-Park@Coalfields project, which it is developing with KLK Land Sdn Bhd through a 60:40 JV.
“We are adopting flexible models for our expansion. As the market grows, we should not restrict ourselves to either construction or buying land and developing it ourselves.
“We can be an enabler – if someone has the right land in the right location, we can work with them to secure a multinational customer,” Tan says.
AME Elite is one of those stocks that tend to trade at very low historical price-to-earnings (PE) multiples, likely due to the lumpy nature of its earnings, which in turn stems from its build-and-sell model.
At its current share price of RM1.35, the stock trades at a paltry historical PE multiple of 2.8 times.
However, the three research houses covering the stock have “buy” calls on it, according to Bloomberg data, giving it a consensus target price (TP) of RM2.20.
Even more interesting is the fact that all three brokerages use different valuation methods for their calls.
RHB Research, for example, reckons AME Elite’s shares should be worth RM2.30 based on its realisable net asset value, while Affin Hwang Investment Bank Research uses the dividend discount model to arrive at a 12-month TP of RM2.
Phillip Capital Research, meanwhile, values the stock at RM2.06 based on a sum-of-the-parts valuation.
Another interesting aspect of AME Elite is that it listed its real estate investment trust (REIT), AME-REIT, in 2022.
At current prices, both counters offer broadly similar dividend yields of around 6%, but their investment propositions are quite different.