Sunway Bhd’s earnings fall on lower fair value of REIT properties

Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall has transformed the Orange Concourse into a retro town square in line with the theme of Raya Pop Yeh Yeh that takes the shoppers back in time to the psychedelic 60s.

KUALA LUMPUR: Sunway Bhd earned RM154.36mil in the second quarter ended June 30, 2016, down 35% from a year earlier mainly due to share of lower fair value gains from the annual revaluation exercise done on Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) properties.

Sunway Bhd, which owns 37.3% in Sunway REIT, told Bursa Malaysia that except for the share of fair value gains which were lower by about RM87.1mil, the group’s overall operational performance was better than the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year.

(For the quarter ended June 30, Sunway REIT recorded fair value of investment properties that was lower by 79.3%, or RM243.27mil. Sunway Bhd’s share of this gap was RM87.1mil.)

Sunway Bhd group’s activities include property development, property investment, construction, trading and manufacturing, and quarry.

The property investment segment, hit by share of lower fair value gains from revaluation of Sunway REIT properties (RM237mil compared with RM110.8mil in the previous corresponding period), saw its pre-tax profit shrink 69% to RM41.3mil. There was also lower profit contribution from the leisure and hospitality divisions due to the fasting month which fell in the quarter under review.

The property development segment, which is the group’s biggest earnings contributor, posted a 14% growth in pre-tax profit to RM60.6mil. “Although the revenue was lower, the performance of the property development segment in the current quarter was higher mainly due to higher profit recognition from local projects,” it said.

Meanwhile, the construction segment’s pre-tax profit slid 39% to RM34.5mil mainly due to lower profit recognition from the on-going projects as well as the upfront planning and preliminary costs incurred on the RM1.21bil Klang Valley MRT contract given to Sunway Construction Group Bhd. The viaduct work for a 4.9km stretch of the MRT Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya line will start in the second half of this financial year.

Sunway Bhd’s total revenue grew 11% to RM1.16bil. This higher revenue, it said, was mainly contributed by the trading and manufacturing segment.

The group’s trading and manufacturing segment boosted its revenue by 79% year-on-year to RM218.5mil. In terms of the bottom line, the segment returned to the black with a pre-tax profit of RM6.7mil compared to a pre-tax loss of RM0.7mil previously.

“The performance in the current quarter was better mainly due to additional contributions from the Winstar group of companies, which was acquired in September 2015,” Sunway Bhd said. Winstar trades hardware, engineering products and industrial safety products in Malaysia.

For the first half-year, Sunway Bhd’s earnings fell by a third to RM256.46mil while revenue increased by 6% to RM2.22bil.

The board has proposed an interim dividend of 5 sen per RM1 share for the financial period ended June 30, 2016, (same as in the first half of last year) to be paid on a date to be determined.