This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on February 27, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Fiamma Holdings Bhd foresees a muted bottom-line growth for the financial year ending Sept 30, 2018 (FY18) due to slow consumer spending and soft property market.

The group is expecting a single-digit revenue growth for its trading and services business — consisting of mainly the distribution of electrical appliances and home furniture — after a flat growth in FY17.

“We will still see some growth, but not as good as in the past,” founder and managing director Jimmy Lim Choo Hong told a press conference after Fiamma’s annual general meeting yesterday.

Citing Euromonitor International’s statistics, Lim said big-ticket consumer goods have been seeing a single-digit growth over the past few years and he expects the trend to continue in FY18.

Some of the key brands developed in-house are ELBA, Faber, Rubine, MEC, Haustern and Tuscani.

Meanwhile, for its property development segment, Fiamma will be focusing on landed property projects in Kota Tinggi and Batu Pahat in Johor. Lim said the group will be launching properties covering 15 acres (6.07ha) of land, or RM40 million, in gross development value (GDV) in FY18.

Currently, the group has an outstanding land bank area of 105 acres with a GDV of RM1.5 billion in the Klang Valley and Johor. Lim said that Fiamma will continue to look for more land in the Klang Valley and Johor.

He added that Fiamma will be putting a hold on its high-rise projects — in particular along Jalan Yap Kwan Seng and Jalan Sungai Besi. However, its ongoing East Parc @ Menjalara project will proceed.