KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 23): Property developer and theme park operator I-Bhd suffered a 39.9% drop in its net profit for the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2015 (3QFY15) to RM8.56 million, from RM14.24 million a year earlier, as revenue falls on lower property sales.

Its latest quarterly revenue was down 28.65% at RM55.22 million, compared with RM77.39 million in 3QFY14, its filing with Bursa Malaysia today showed.

I-Bhd said its property development segment, which is the group's biggest revenue contributor, recorded lower sales and pre-tax profit because its ongoing developments were at their initial stages of construction.

These included its i-SOHO, i-Suites, Liberty, and Parisien towers projects.

For the cumulative nine months (9MFY15), I-Bhd's net profit fell 31.29% to RM27.31 million from last year's RM39.75 million.

Its earnings per share, however, dropped by a bigger quantum to 2.57 sen, from 8.27 sen as the group had expanded its share base by issuing a five-for-four rights shares last year, which came with one free warrant for every five rights shares, and a bonus share for every five post-rights issue shares, as well as five irredeemable convertible unsecured loan stock for one existing share.

Hence its 3QFY15's weighted average number of shares as at the end of the quarter was 1.06 billion, compared with 480.64 million a year earlier.

Going forward, I-Bhd expects its property development and leisure segments to continue contributing positively to its financials in FY15.

"As at the third quarter of this year, year-to-date sales generated by the property development segment was higher as compared to the year-to-date sales recorded for the third quarter of 2014. This has resulted in the unbilled sales as at the end of September 2015 growing to RM679.2 million as compared to RM453.4 million at the end of September 2014," I-Bhd said.

Consequently, the group said it expects this will translate to higher revenue when the construction progresses further in the future.

I-Bhd also said its leisure segment's growth will be driven by the growing occupancy at its Best Western i-City Hotel and contributions from new attractions at Leisure Park @ i-City, which opened at the beginning of this year.

"Barring any unforeseen circumstances and based on the aforementioned factors, the board (of I-Bhd) is confident that the group would achieve sustainable operating results for FY15," I-Bhd concluded.

Its shares closed five sen or 0.92% lower at 54 sen apiece, valuing it at RM539.6 million.

(Note: The Edge Research’s fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)