Chan Heng Fai, executive chairman and group CEO of Alset International, has steadily increased his stake in the company in recent weeks.
The most recent acquisition was recorded on June 16 when he purchased 131,200 shares for $8,528 or 6.5 cents each. This increased his direct stake in the company to 293.4 million shares or 10.01%. Chan also has a deemed stake of another 2.22 billion shares or 75.78%. This gives him a total stake of just over 2.5 billion shares or 85.79%.
To be sure, Chan has acquired a total of more than 11 million shares since May 31. In fact, Chan had made purchases on June 10, June 14 and on June 15 when he acquired one million shares for $66,000 or 6.6 cents each.
For the FY2020 ended December 2020, Alset reported a 24% y-o-y drop in revenue to $23.4 million. However, it also reported earnings of $59.7 million, reversing sharply from the losses of $13.1 million in FY2019.
The bottom line was also lifted by a one-off divestment gain of $67.1 million of Impact Biomedical, the group’s biomedical arm. This followed the completion of the proposed US$50 million share swap with New York-listed Document Security Systems on Aug 24, 2020.
In its FY2020 earnings commentary on March 1, Alset, which develops properties in the US, said it has started infrastructure works at a sustainable healthy living community project at Black Oak, in the US. The project is described by the company as the first-of-its-kind “sustainable healthy living community”.
These eco-friendly single-family homes are fully fitted with sustainable transport, living and energy systems including solar systems and energy storage as well as electric cars utilising a vehicle-to-grid concept, among others. Alset plans to expand this concept to other projects.
Situated on approximately 136 acres of land, the Black Oak plot has been subdivided into over 600 buildable lots. “Having built up our sustainable healthy living ecosystem for a number of years now, we are pleased to note that we are on the cusp of revolutionising the way we live, work and play,” says Chan.
“Supported by our extensive and successful track record in property development, we harness the necessary skill sets, expertise, network and production capabilities to provide high quality designer homes with integrated smart technologies at affordable prices,” he adds.
On June 21, the company announced a strategic agreement with Tesla for an initial supply of Tesla PV solar panels, powerwalls and EV chargers to be installed at single-family homes built by Alset’s subsidiary in the US. The Tesla products will be installed in 20 brand new homes at the Northpark Community in Porter, Texas and 10 more under contract in the same community. There are plans to acquire an additional 70 units in the Houston area, targeting a total of 100 in 2021.
Regional expansion
Kelvin Fong Keng Seong, PropNex’s executive director, has also increased his stake in the real estate broking company. On June 21, he acquired 18,400 shares at $1.49 each and 100,000 shares at $1.50 each. With the purchase, Fong now holds a take of nearly 31.4 million shares, or 8.48% of the company.
Just a week earlier, he acquired 200,000 shares on June 14 and 28,500 shares on June 15, both at $1.50 each. Earlier on May 28, his wife Janet Lim Bee Hua also sold 100,000 shares.
On May 19, PropNex announced its expansion into Cambodia, its fourth overseas market, via a franchise arrangement. PropNex Cambodia is headed by CEO Alan Neo, who manages around 500 agents. This brings the total number of agents the company has to around 12,000.
On Feb 24, the company reported revenue for FY2020 ended December 2020 rose 22.8% to $515.6 million. Thanks to better margins, it was able to report a 45.2% rise in earnings to $29.1 million from $20 million in FY2019.
PropNex also declared a final dividend of four cents, which gives it an FY2020 dividend yield of 7%, when the interim dividend of 1.5 cents is included.
Photo: Samuel Isaac Chua/The Edge Singapore
