This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 20, 2021 - December 26, 2021

The Edge Malaysia Top Property Developers Awards is an exercise to rank Malaysia’s top property players based on their quantitative and qualitative attributes. The ranking is published annually.

Introduced in 2003, the awards are based on the conviction that a developer’s quantitative attributes alone are not sufficient to earn it the title of the most outstanding player. A property developer is judged not only on how profitable the company is or how many homes it builds and sells each year but also on its qualitative attributes.

All companies listed on Bursa Malaysia’s property index are automatically considered for the awards while non-listed developers that are interested in being ranked need to submit their entries. Advertisements calling for entries from privately owned companies and the property development arms of companies not listed on Bursa’s property index were published in The Edge Malaysia.

Four quantitative attributes, namely shareholders’ funds, profit before tax, revenue and cash/net gearing make up 35% of the overall score. Net gearing is defined as the total of long and short-term loans minus cash divided by shareholders’ funds.

All financial data considered for the 2021 awards was based on a developer’s FY2020 results. The quantitative data of listed developers was derived from documents submitted to Bursa. Non-listed companies were required to submit copies of their audited accounts. Where signed audited financial statements were not available, data certified by the developer’s external auditors were used. Nine non-listed developers took part this year.

Qualitative attributes contribute a greater weightage of 65%. The five attributes evaluated are product quality (finishing and timeliness), innovation and creativity (in products and marketing), value creation for buyers (capital appreciation), image (includes credibility) and expertise (includes management and experience). Effective 2017, a truncated mean has been adopted to compute the qualitative attributes, where the highest and the lowest scores given by the judges are discarded and the average is based on the remaining scores.

A maximum of 10 points are awarded for each qualitative and quantitative attribute. Points for quantitative attributes are based on the financial data of the company while points for qualitative attributes are awarded by a panel of judges comprising industry experts and veterans as well as The Edge Malaysia. Also effective 2017, companies with scores that are less than 0.5 point of each other will be ranked equally. For example, company A with 60.1 points and company B with 60.5 points will be ranked the same.

This year’s judges were Datuk Jeffrey Ng, Tan Sri Teo Chiang Kok, Kumar Tharmalingam, Tan Sri Eddy Chen, Datuk Seri F D Iskandar, Datuk Seri Michael Yam and Datuk Soam Heng Choon. The Edge Malaysia was represented by The Edge Media Group publisher and group CEO Datuk Ho Kay Tat, EdgeProp.my managing director and editor-in-chief Au Foong Yee and City & Country acting editor E Jacqui Chan.

Judges who abstained from the deliberation and judging of companies in which they had direct or indirect interest were Ng on Sunway Bhd (he is CEO of Sunway REIT Management Sdn Bhd), Chen on MKH Bhd (managing director),  F D Iskandar on Glomac Bhd (managing director and CEO), Soam on Sime Darby Property (director) and Yam on Paramount Corp Bhd (director).

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