This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on June 8, 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: Crest Builder Holdings Bhd expects its performance for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2017 (FY17) to be better than FY16, with the completion of several projects under its construction division.

Its group managing director (MD) Eric Yong Shang Ming said the construction division will drive the group’s growth this year.

“Based on the timing of the projects, we are looking to complete a couple of projects this year. Our largest contract to date is Quarza Residence at Sime Darby Property Bhd’s KL East development, which will be going full swing this year,” he told reporters after the group’s annual general meeting yesterday.

In June last year, Crest Builder clinched a RM438.3 million contract to build residential and commercial buildings at the KL East development in Setapak.

“Yes, we are looking to post very good numbers in FY17,” said Yong.

On the group’s RM500 million order book replenishment target for FY17, Yong said it has yet to secure any job so far this year, but is actively bidding for various projects.

“We hope to secure something within the next quarter or so. It will be quite a sizeable one. Nonetheless, we have an outstanding order book of RM1.1 billion, which will last us well into 2018,” Yong said.

He also noted that the group is tendering for some RM1.8 billion worth of projects and expects more tenders coming up in the next few months, which will help in meeting the group’s RM3 billion tender book target.

He added that the bulk of contracts to be tendered out are for projects in the Klang Valley, adding that some of the building contracts the group is eyeing will be related to the light rail transit 3 project.

For the property development division, Crest Builder will be launching the residential portion of the RM1.1 billion gross development value (GDV) Latitud8 in Dang Wangi here.

The group has already done a couple of international previews for the RM750 million GDV residential portion, which garnered encouraging response.

“In May, we did our international previews to gauge the market conditions of buyers from Hong Kong and China.

“For the local market, we are targeting a soft launch in September, looking more at business associates from our internal database. We are targeting for a public launch towards the end of the year or January [2018]” said Yong.

He noted that there has been a knee-jerk impact on international sales, following China’s move to introduce capital controls, but said the weak ringgit makes properties here attractive for international investors.

He added that the property market may have bottomed-out, as more tenders have been put out by the major developers over the past two to three months, signalling some recovery of confidence in the market.

“Based on the current outlook, I believe the market will pick up substantially within the next two quarters,” he said.

Meanwhile, Yong said the group’s Residensi Hijauan project has seen 40% of units sold so far for Phase 1, and it plans to launch the second phase once 50% to 60% of the Phase 1 units are sold.