Friday February 20, 2009 By DAVID TAN The StarBiz GEORGE TOWN: Zhulian Corp Bhd, a main-board group specialising in direct selling, is undertaking expansion this year to cater to new markets, despite a gloomy global market outlook. Group managing director Danny M.K. Teoh said the group was investing RM18mil this year to expand its warehouse-cum-marketing headquarters at the Bayan Lepas Industrial Estate. “We are building another facility comprising a warehouse and a manufacturing floor,” he told StarBiz. “The new facility is scheduled for completion next year.” Zhulian wants to grow its presence especially in Sabah and Sarawak and in Indonesia. “We will also set up a sales office in Kuching this year, in addition to the one we set up last year in Kota Kinabalu. “The new markets that we want to penetrate this year include Vietnam and the Philippines,” Teoh said. Zhulian currently has over 400,000 distributors in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. For the financial year ended Nov 30 (FY08), exports contributed 42% to the group’s revenue. Zhulian’s products include costume jewellery marketed under the Zhulian brandname, food and beverage items, and nutritional supplements under a variety of in-house brands. “To support overseas sales, we began expanding a year ago when we started operations in the RM40mil facility in Bayan Lepas, specialising in manufacturing food and beverage and nutritional supplements,” said Teoh. “The plant is now in the process of obtaining a Good Manufacturing Practice certification. “It is currently 50% utilised and has the capacity to support the group’s growth for the next five years.” Zhulian has a third plant in Bayan Lepas focused on the production of costume jewellery and water purifiers. On the company’ billboards along the North-South Expressway and the East Coast Highway, Teoh said Zhulian had some 200 billboards along the two highways. “This is part of our branding strategy. The long term impact of the strategy cannot be gauged now, as we started placing the billboards on the highways about 18 months ago after the company was listed. “The short term effect is that more people have come to know the Zhulian brand,” he said. Teoh, however, declined to reveal how much was spent on the billboards. In FY08, the group posted net profit of RM74.7mil on revenue of RM303mil, a growth of 27% and 38% respectively over FY07. FYI: Zhulian's EPS and dividend in FY08 is 21.65sen and 11 sen. Zhulian History ZHULIAN first began in 1989 as a 100% Malaysian owned direct selling company primarily focused on its highly popular core product - gold plated jewellery. The outstanding success of its dedicated network of distributors and the high appeal of its fashion jewellery led to the expansion and inclusion of a wider range of innovative new products including Food & Beverage, Home Care, Nutritional Health, Personal Care and Water Treatment System. As for overseas growth, it has expanded business regionally to Thailand and Indonesia, with the establishment of ZHULIAN (THAILAND) LTD (ZTH) in 1996 and PT. ZHULIAN INDONESIA in 1997 respectively. In Singapore, Zhulian operate through our wholly-owned subsidiary ZHULIAN (SINGAPORE) PTE LTD (ZSG), which was incorporated in 2001 as a private limited company under the Companies Act, Cap 50 in the Republic of Singapore. The principal activity of ZTH, PT. ZHULIAN INDONESIA and ZSG is in the direct marketing of costume jewellery and consumer products. Today ZHULIAN is poised for more dynamic growth and expansion in creating a rewarding and brilliant future for its growing network of local and international distributors.
