Bina Puri bids for jobs worth RM3.4bil

KUALA LUMPUR: Construction outfit Bina Puri Holdings Bhd has tendered for major projects worth about RM 3.4bil this year.

The tenders were for the Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (Rapid), Damansara-Shah Alam Elevated Expressway (Dash) and Sungai Besi-Ulu Kelang Elevated Expressway (SUKE) projects.

Group chief operating officer We Her Ching said in a briefing that the company was tendering for three packages from the Rapid project worth RM1bil, with the remainder eight packages from the Dash and SUKE projects.

Other significant projects the company has tendered for include the Pan-Borneo Highway project as a 70:30 joint venture partner with Kuching-based Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd worth RM2bil. Bina Puri has a 30% stake in the JV and its share of the project amounts to RM600mil.

“Based on our past record, we’ve had a 10% success rate for the tenders,” We said.

The company has also tendered for the MRT Sungai Buloh - Serdang - Putrajaya line, LRT Bandar Utama - Damansara - Johan Setia line as well as the BRT Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu projects.

The company also has ongoing overseas projects as well as local property projects. In total, executive director Matthew Tee (pic) said the company could secure up to RM1bil worth of contstruction projects this year from the domestic and overseas markets.

He said the next few years would be good for the construction sector due largely to government spending.

“More construction jobs will be available under the 11th Malaysia Plan, which also includes 500,000 affordable houses to be built by 2018,” Tee added.

He said there would be minimal impact on the sector from any revision of Budget 2016. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak last week said that the federal budget would be “calibrated” to reflect the weaker crude oil prices.

“Even if there is a possible scale down 10% to 20% of projects, there are still billions of ringgit worth of projects that are to be built, so it would not impact the construction industry negatively,” Tee told StarBiz on the sidelines.

He said should projects be scaled down by more than 20%, then construction companies would become more aggressive in price competition.

Currently, Bina Puri has ongoing projects worth RM3.4bil, of which 87% originates from Malaysia while the remaining comes from overseas. It has an outstanding orderbook of RM1.89bil.

Meanwhile, Tee said that the company plans to raise US$4mil from listing its utilities business on the Indonesia Stock Exchange by June 30, 2016.

The utilities unit has 28MW capacity of micro-diesel generated power plants in eight locations in Indonesia.

Tee said the property development arm has targeted sales to double to RM140mil from selling serviced apartments in the Opus project, located along Jalan Talalla in Kuala Lumpur.

Sales have hit 50% of the 357 units.