KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 1): DRB-Hicom Bhd shares attracted buying interest  after Public Invest Research issued an outperform call on the company, with a target price of RM1.31, representing a potential upside of 34% at the time the report was issued.

The research report cited the completion of Proton’s foreign strategic partner exercise as near term catalyst for DRB-Hicom.

As at 4.11pm, DRB-Hicom’s share price was up 6.5 sen or 6.74% to RM1.03, with 12.4 million shares traded. This is more than double the stock’s 200-day average volume of 5.48 million shares.

The surge in interest was despite the fact that the group slipped into the red for the second quarter ended Sept 30, 2016 (2QFY17) with a net loss of RM309.6 million compared with a net profit of RM3.9 million in 2QFY16.

The share price has fallen by 32.2% from its one-year high of RM1.52 at the end of September.