“We are interested in acquiring quite a number of glove factories and those involved in packaging material or glove machinery.

“As we have a strong balance sheet in hand, the amount is not a concern for this acquisition to take place and it would range from RM10mil to RM1bil,” Lim said during a conference call when presenting Top Glove’s second quarter results yesterday.

He said the group would prefer to acquire Malaysian-based companies to manage easily. Top Glove’s net profit came in 35% higher at RM56.1mil on the back of a 4.4% increase in revenue to RM572.2mil for the second quarter financial year ended Feb 28.

“The demand for natural rubber gloves from emerging markets, where Top Glove has a stronghold, with exports to 200 countries worldwide, in particular continued to grow steadily,” Lim said, adding that the group currently has close to 30% of world market share for nitrile gloves, while natural rubber gloves’ segment stood at less than 20%.

The group’s better performance was also due to the downtrend in raw material prices, its on-going internal improvement in quality, efficiency and cost control measures, better margins from newer and more efficient machineries and factories, apart from the stronger greenback as well as the post-consolidation turnaround of its China operations, which showed RM1.5mil profit in the current quarter compared to RM5.4mil loss, a year ago.