KUALA LUMPUR: Al-Hadharah Boustead REIT posted realised net profit of RM64 million for its financial year ended Dec 31, 2008, compared to RM52 million a year earlier, on the back of RM68 million revenue. Al-Hadharah REIT said the key contributing factor in the increase in revenue was due to the performance based profit sharing of RM26 million compared with the previous year's RM17 million. Boustead REIT Managers Sdn Bhd chairman Tan Sri Lodin Wok Kamaruddin said Al-Hadharah REIT continued to hold strong to its position as the second largest and the only Islamic plantation REIT in the nation. "Of course, our record earnings were due to the remarkable performance of crude palm oil prices particularly during the first half of this financial period. "Despite adverse market conditions which had a strong impact on global crude palm oil (CPO) prices, we were positively impacted - particularly in the first half of the year, which saw an average CPO price of RM3,026 per tonne. We closed the year with an annual average price of RM2,627 per tonne compared with last year's RM2,332 per tonne," he said. He said for the financial year 2008, the Al-Hadharah REIT was committed to a fixed dividend of 7.38 sen per annum irrespective of market conditions. In tandem with the positive performance, the Managers have declared a total dividend of 11.03 sen for this year, he said. To date, 3.69 sen has been distributed and paid on Aug 29, 2008. The remaining 7.34 sen will be paid on Feb 27, 2009, to unitholders on the register as at Feb 17, 2009. Al-Hadharah REIT's net asset value per unit jumped to RM1.26 due to acquisitions and a revaluation exercise undertaken on the existing assets, which resulted in an increase of the market value of its plantation assets portfolio to more than RM800 million. This exercise saw a fair value gain of RM129 million on the Fund's plantation assets bringing total profit for the year to RM190 million. "It was indeed a good year as we strengthened our Fund size and expanded our asset base with the acquisition of the Malakoff and Bebar estates, which saw an increase of total land area amounting to more than 3,700 hectares bringing total hectarage to over 16,000. "We expect to see immediate benefits particularly from enhanced revenue given our expanded asset base and subject to favourable market conditions. We will continue to look out for viable assets for injection into the Fund in the foreseeable future," said Lodin.