Friday 29 Mar 2024
By
main news image

KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 27): I-Bhd's net profit for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2018 (4QFY18) fell 59% to RM6.3 million from RM15.38 million in the same quarter a year ago, on lower property development revenue.

In a filing with the local bourse, the property developer said its earnings per share fell to 0.59 sen from 1.45 sen a year earlier.

Its quarterly revenue slumped 65.6% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM47.97 million from RM139.48 million in 4QFY17.

For the full year ended Dec 31, 2018 (FY18), I-Bhd's net profit dipped 7% y-o-y to RM58.79 million from RM63.19 million. Revenue was 17.6% lower at RM375.14 million compared with RM455.19 million in FY17.

In a separate statement, I-Bhd chairman Tan Sri Lim Kim Hong said the group delivered credible results for 2018, notwithstanding the challenging property development market environment, as it was able to improve the performance of the leisure as well as the property investment segments.

"Five years ago we embarked on a plan to establish a RM1 billion investment property portfolio to have a strong recurring income stream to balance the cyclical earnings from the property development segment. 2018 is a transition year for this plan as the capital employed for the property investment segment in 2018 is now significantly larger than the capital employed for the property development segment," Lim said.

"For the past few years, much of the investment properties were still under construction and thus did not contribute to the bottom line of the group. The picture will be different from 2019 onwards. Firstly, central i-City Mall will be opened to the public with the soft opening on March 23, 2019 and the official opening scheduled on April 27, 2019. We see this having a positive impact on our car park utilisation and demand for the other commercial spaces at centralWalk in the coming years," he said.

The group said the new snow fall experience that was introduced in 2018 for its SnoWalk attraction and the opening of the i-City Convention Centre will help to drive additional traffic to i-City.

At the noon break today, shares of I-Bhd dipped 0.5 sen or 1.2% to 43 sen.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share