Boustead not as good as I thought

From the Edge:

Boustead Holdings Bhd's net profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015 (1QFY15) has plunged 99.8% to RM100,000 or 0.01 sen per share from RM56.4 million or 5.45 sen per share a year ago, on lower revenue.

Revenue was down 24.3% to RM1.89 billion from RM2.499 billion in 1QFY14, its filing to Bursa Malaysia today showed.

Despite the weaker financials, Boustead (fundamental: 0.65; valuation: 2) declared its first interim dividend of 5 sen per share in 1QFY15, which will be paid on June 30, 2015.

Upon closer look at the financials,  not enough profit comes from insurance to be a major factor in its business operations.  It's something like 1/5 of total profits.  Say each business line varies by about 100-200 million in profit or loss per year.  Insurance would have a poor impact on stabilizing the earnings variability.

I have to take back what I said about Boustead.  Their insurance line is a good investment against the other cyclical divisions of the company but it's too little overall for a long term buy and forget holding.