This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on May 19, 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: Property developer UEM Sunrise Bhd is expecting to secure lower sales of RM1.2 billion this year, compared with RM1.4 billion last year, said managing director and chief executive officer Anwar Syahrin Abdul Ajib.

Though the group targeted RM1 billion sales last year and exceeded the sales target, the group remains “cautious” about the outlook for 2017, said Anwar.

“We are a bit fussy about our launches because we want to ensure that it will be accepted by the market,” he said after the group’s near-five-hours-long annual general meeting here yesterday.

Meanwhile, the group is on track to launch five property projects in Johor, the Klang Valley and Melbourne, Australia — worth a total of RM1.7 billion — in the second half of this year, he said.

“Starting from July, we will be launching two flagship projects — Solaris Parq and Mayfair in Melbourne. They will have a combined gross development value of more than RM1.4 billion,” he said.

“Then, we will launch other projects — the third phase of Melia Residences and Serimbun [in Johor], and Dahlia at Serene Heights [in Bangi, Selangor],” he said.

This year, UEM Sunrise will also be looking to expand its land bank to increase its presence in the Klang Valley to balance sales contributions from different regions of Malaysia. For the financial year ended Dec 31, 2016 (FY16), its southern-region projects generated 50% of total sales, compared with 12% in FY15.

“We are looking at buying more land in [the] Klang Valley, where we could be developing potential projects in the long run, and one that can last from 15 to 20 years,” Anwar said.

Going forward, he said UEM Sunrise hopes it will be able to keep the momentum of its first-quarter (1QFY17) performance for FY17 earnings. It saw a 20-fold rise in net profit for 1QFY17, on a stronger revenue from its development projects and revision of estimated cost for completed ones.