PETALING JAYA: Sime Darby Bhd
, which saw its core net profit rise 32.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) in the financial year ended June 30, 2026 (FY26), expects its core financial performance in FY27 to be “consistent” with FY26.
Group chief executive officer Datuk Jeffri Salim Davidson said a recovery in mining activity and growing data centre (DC) investments would support the group’s industrial division.
“From the industrial perspective, the mining business is beginning to bounce back a little bit,” he told the media during the group’s financial performance briefing.
“We’ve seen the green shoots already in some of our businesses. So I think that will be coming back with a bit more sustained order books coming through for repair and rebuild work.”
Jeffri said DC investments across the group’s markets would also provide a key growth opportunity for the industrial division, particularly through demand for Caterpillar engines and generator sets.
“Many DCs are being built, and we supply the Caterpillar engine or gensets into that. So that’s going to be one of the drivers (for FY27) too.”
Sime Darby is the exclusive and authorised dealer and distributor of Caterpillar products and services in Malaysia and Brunei.
Following its acquisition of Cavpower Group in August 2023, it is also the official distributor of Caterpillar equipment, parts and services across South Australia and Broken Hill in New South Wales.
Its industrial division had an order book of RM4.66bil as at July 2026, with about RM1.5bil each from Australia and Malaysia.
Industrial division managing director Dean Mehmet said DC-related orders currently accounted for slightly less than half of the division’s order book.
Chief financial officer Muhammad Noor Abd Aziz said Caterpillar was a preferred brand for data centre backup power systems due to its reliability, service support and track record in mission-critical applications.
On the motors division, Jeffri said the business remained challenging, particularly in China, although the group continued to see potential from new vehicle launches.
“We continue to represent some of the best brands in the world. We do very well in certain countries, in Singapore, Malaysia, that’s going to continue to be good,” he said.
“In China, it’ll be tough, but we’ve got the Neue Klasse that’s going to be launched this year. From the early indication it is quite positive.”
The Neue Klasse is BMW’s next-generation electric vehicle and technology platform.
For FY26, Sime Darby’s net profit fell 14.5% to RM1.76bil from RM2.06bil previously, while revenue slipped 0.8% to RM69.47bil from RM70.06bil.
The weaker reported net profit was mainly due to a lower gain from the disposal of Malaysia Vision Valley (MVV) land, as well as one-off impairments and provisions recognised in the fourth quarter.
Sime Darby recorded a RM434mil gain from the MVV land disposal in FY26, compared with RM901mil in FY25.
Muhammad Noor said the group had also taken a prudent approach in reviewing its cash-generating units, resulting in RM266mil of impairments at the profit before interest and tax (PBIT) level.
Excluding the impairments and other non-recurring items, he said Sime Darby posted full-year core net profit of RM1.55bil for FY26, up 32.6% from FY25. Asked about the outlook for reported net profit, he said the group did not expect “any major decline” in the coming quarters of FY27.
On its divisions, the motors division saw core PBIT double to RM737mil in FY26, supported by higher unit sales and improved margins in Hong Kong and Macau, as well as higher assembly profits and contributions from the BMW dividend pool.
The division sold more than 134,500 vehicles in FY26, up 2% year-on-year, while units assembled increased 17% to 35,113 from 30,114 previously.
Muhammad Noor said the mainland China motor business, while still loss-making at the PBIT level, had improved significantly, “that supported our overall performance”, and was expected to benefit further from BMW’s Neue Klasse models.
“We are hoping that Neue Klasse will change our financial performance in the next financial year,” he said. “We are encouraged by the response [of Neue Klasse] in Europe, in Malaysia, in other parts of the world. And we hope China will be equally successful.”
Motors division managing director Andrew Basham said the group had also streamlined its dealership network in China and the division’s performance was stronger when Hong Kong was included.
