KUALA LUMPUR: Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad, press secretary to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, has been appointed independent and non-executive director of Utusan Melayu (Malaysia) Bhd with immediate effect.

Tengku Sariffuddin, 47, was a journalist with  The New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd from 1987 to 1997 before he was appointed as the press secretary to Najib, who was then the education minister.

In a separate filing to Bursa Malaysia Securities yesterday, Utusan also announced the appointment of its group editor-in-chief Abdul Aziz Ishak, 45, as an executive director with immediate effect.

Meanwhile, Utusan announced a surge in net profit to RM8.28 million in its third quarter ended Sept 30, 2009 from RM33,000 a year earlier although revenue fell 2.8% to RM89.53 million from RM92.15 million, mainly due to lower costs. Basic earnings per share (EPS) rose to 7.48 sen from 0.03 sen.

Quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q), the group posted a pre-tax profit of RM10.1 million versus RM300,000 in the preceding three-month period mainly due to a higher revenue and lower raw material and consumables. Revenue rose 5.7% q-o-q from RM84.7 million mainly due to higher advertising revenue.

For the nine-month period to Sept 30, net profit rose 13.7% to RM1.16 million from RM1.02 million a year earlier, mainly due to lower revenue and taxation. At pre-tax level, profit fell 23% to RM1.7 million from RM2.2 million a year earlier due to lower revenue as a result of the economic slowdown in the first half of the year.

Revenue fell over 8% to RM253.59 million from RM276.37 million, while EPS rose to 1.05 sen from 0.92 sen.