25/08/2025

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MONDAY | AUG 25, 2025

Sports Toto posts RM1.63b Q4 revenue o Pre-tax profit at RM72.3m, fourth interim dividend of two sen per share declared bution structure of certain manu facturers and the product life cycle of certain car models.

Sports Toto’s board of directors has declared a fourth interim dividend of two sen per share, amounting to about RM26.7 million for the financial year ended June 30, 2025. The dividend is payable on Oct 17 with the entitlement date fixed on Oct 2. With this, the total dividend distribution for the financial year is eight sen per share, amounting to about RM106.9 million. The directors remain cautiously optimistic that the group’s business will remain stable and resilient. The number forecast operator (NFO) business is expected to continue to deliver growth in line with the popularity of its jackpot and digit games. Despite prevailing uncertainties and global economic headwinds including geopolitical tensions, on going trade disputes and inflationary tariff impact, the directors are confident that it will continue its lead in terms of market share in the legalised NFO business sector and the group’s businesses are expected to be encouraging and maintain a positive outlook for the financial year ending June 30 2026. YIM helps Sabah entrepreneurs with innovation TAWAU: The Malaysian Innovation Foundation (YIM) is assisting local communities and entrepreneurs in Sabah to identify innovation opportunities that can enhance productivity and product quality. YIM, an agency under the Science, Technology and Inno vation Ministry, is implementing the initiative through the Jejak Inovasi Sosial programme, covering selected sites in Merotai. Its CEO, Dr Sharmila Mohamed Salleh, said the visit with Deputy Science, Technology and Inno vation Minister Datuk Mohammad Yusof Apdal aimed to assess product potential and challenges faced by entrepreneurs. “We examine all aspects, in cluding how innovation can speed up processing, increase output, and benefit the entrepreneurs. We are also collecting related data and will share the information with relevant parties to ensure it receives proper attention,” she told Bernama. The sites visited include a swiftlet farm, an amplang cracker production facility and IoT irrigation systems for ginger cultivation. Swiftlet farm operator in Kampung Tanah Merah Laut, Merotai Besar, Syamsul Kurus, 41, hopes to receive support to enhance the production of white swiftlet nests, which he started in 2021. Meanwhile, amplang cracker entre preneur, Kasmah Basiran, 68, said she needed equipment such as mixers and fryers to meet rising demand.

was due to the higher sales driven by higher accumulated jackpot from the Supreme Toto 6/58 game in the current financial year; while the increase in pre-tax profit was in tandem with the revenue growth coupled with lower prize payout during the current financial year under review. HR Owen’s revenue improved by 3.1% in the financial year ended June 30, 2025 compared to the previous financial year, which was mainly attributed to the used car sector and from the new marque, Lotus, represented by the company during the current financial year under review. However, due to unfavourable foreign exchange effect, revenue dropped 1% when converted into ringgit, which is the reporting currency of the group.

The lower pre-tax profit of RM11.7 million from RM17.6 million in last year’s same quarter aligned with the reported lower revenue coupled with higher operating expenses incurred in relation to brand positioning efforts.

PETALING JAYA: Sports Toto Bhd (SPToto) reported RM1.63 billion revenue for the fourth quarter of its financial year ended June 30, 2025 (Q4’25 or current quarter), a slight decrease of 1.3% from RM1.65 billion registered in the previous year’s corresponding quarter. The group registered a pre-tax profit of RM72.3 million for the current quarter, a drop of 30.6% from RM104.2 million posted in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. In a statement, SPToto said the marginal drop in revenue for the quarter ended June 30, 2025 was mainly due to softer sales from HR Owen Plc, while the drop in pre-tax profit was reflected from the performance of both STM Lottery Sdn Bhd and HR Owen, and also higher investment-related expenses incurred during the quarter but partially mitigated by higher share of profits from associate companies. PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s two locally developed artificial intelli gence (AI) initiatives – ILMU ( Intelek Luhur Malaysia Untukmu or Excellent Malaysian Intelligence for You) for sovereign capability and NurAI for syariah-aligned guidance – position the country to lead Asean in trustworthy, values-based AI, said AI risks and safety adviser Chan Tzu Kit. He said ILMU – the country’s first homegrown large language model (LLM) launched by YTL AI Labs Sdn Bhd – strengthens sovereign capa bility with a locally tuned multimodal model for government, education and SMEs, while Zetrix AI Bhd’s NurAI – the world’s first syariah-aligned, Islamic values-based LLM – addresses a gap to curb misinformation and expand services in Islamic finance, halal and public guidance. “Sovereign, locally trained multi modal models also mean sensitive Malaysian data doesn’t have to leave the country,” he told SunBiz . Chan described the move as a step-change for Malaysia, shifting the nation from being an AI user to an AI maker. However, he stressed that trust will hinge on safety and governance. Chan called for both initiatives to publish model cards and undergo independent evaluations, particularly on Bahasa Melayu performance, refusal rates and factuality in sensitive areas such as religion, health and finance. He also urged authenticated sources and human-in-the-loop for sensitive queries, local red-teaming Ű BY HAYATUN RAZAK sunbiz@thesundaily.com

For the current quarter, STM Lottery achieved stronger revenue growth of 3.7% compared to the previous year’s corres ponding quarter. This was primarily driven by higher accumulated prizes from the 4D Jackpot game, while the number of draws re mained the same in both quarters. Pre-tax profit decreased by 14.8%, mainly attributed to higher operating ex penses including corporate social responsibility sponsorships incurred during the current quarter under review.

For the financial year ended June 30, 2025, SPToto reported revenue of RM6.5 billion, representing a rise of 1.7% over revenue of RM6.4 billion in the previous year. The group’s pre-tax profit increased by 8.2% to RM370.8

million compared to the pre-tax profit of RM342.8 million reported in the previous year.

As for HR Owen, a revenue drop of 4.1% was registered in the current quarter compared to the previous year’s corresponding quarter, which was mainly due to lower sales volume in the new car sector that was impacted by the change in distri Homegrown ILMU, NurAI enhance Malaysia’s AI credentials STM Lottery registered revenue and pre-tax profit growth of 5.4% and 13.3% respectively compared to the previous year despite conducting fewer draws in the current financial year (164 versus 167 draws in the previous year). The revenue growth HR Owen reported lower pre-tax profit by 24% compared to the previous financial year, which was mainly attributed to higher operating expenses incurred related to brand positioning efforts, while partially mitigated by reduced financial costs following the interest rate reduction in the United Kingdom.

with bug bounties to test for jailbreaks and data leaks, and the use of content watermarking for official outputs. Chan further proposed a single incident-reporting portal with annual independent audits, and on-premises or virtual private cloud deployments with strict access controls for the public sector. “Malaysia can be the place where AI is both powerful and principled. Guardrails turn good demos into dependable systems. “If NAIO (National AI Office) makes ILMU and NurAI early pilots for national and Asean guardrails, Malaysia can lead the region pairing language and values fit with trans parent evaluations and clear account ability,” he said. Several countries in the region are also developing their own AI models. Singapore has launched SEA-LION, a family of open-source LLMs for Southeast Asian languages, and MERaLiON-AudioLLM for speech/text. Indonesia is building Sahabat-AI, focused on Bahasa Indonesia and local languages. India has multiple projects, Bharat GPT, BharatGen, AI4Bharat and Sarvam AI, all aimed at multilingual Indic capabilities. Thailand created the Typhoon LLM for Thai, while South Korea’s Upstage Solar Pro 2 is a frontier model rivaling GPT-4. On a separate matter, Chan highlighted other immediate threats Malaysia faces from unchecked AI development – the potential loss of up to half of Malaysia’s palm oil exports by 2027 – as AI-driven labs develop cheaper synthetic alter natives, and the displacement of up to one in three Malaysian workers, with

AI replacing entire categories of jobs faster than the country can adapt. Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia head of Environmental Management and Conservation Research Unit Dr Noraini Ruslan said if synthetic palm oil becomes com mercially viable too soon, oversupply could drive down crude palm oil prices and severely impact the income of smallholders, repeating the history of Malaysia’s natural rubber industry. “The decline of rubber, once the country’s dominant commodity, came swiftly after synthetic rubber flooded global markets and displaced natural rubber in many applications. Malaysia cannot afford to let palm oil follow the same fate,” she told SunBiz . Regarding this matter, Chan advocated for setting up a dedicated institute to conduct full-time research Chan: Move shifts Malaysia from AI user to AI maker.

on AI safety and economic transition strategies. He stressed that Malaysia needs only RM1 million per year to kickstart such an institute, one-tenth the annual budget of the National Innovation Organisation. “This insti tute would focus on anticipating economic disruptions and formu lating policies before mass layoffs and export shocks occur.” Chan said Malaysia has a track record of being “three years too late” on critical digital issues: it delayed enacting the Personal Data Protection Act, cybersecurity laws and digital watermarking standards. “Delay with AI safety could prove catastrophic as Malaysia can be ‘ pelanduk mati di tengah-tengah’ (mousedeer crushed between two elephants) caught between the US and China’s AI arms race.” Noraini: Malaysia cannot allow palm oil to follow fate of rubber industry.