Zhong Sheng Jian, executive chairman and CEO of developer Yanlord Land Group, snapped up nearly 7 million shares over three days last week, spending a total of nearly $8.2 million. That works out to an average price of around $1.17 per share.
On Aug 17, Zhong acquired 3.27 million shares for nearly $3.8 million; the following day he acquired another 1.78 million shares for nearly $2.1 million. On Aug 19, he yet again acquired 1.93 million shares for $2.29 million.
With that, his direct stake is up from 5.006% to 5.368%. In addition, Zhong has a deemed interest in another 1.28 billion shares. This gives Zhong a total interest of more than 1.38 billion shares or 71.553% of the company.
The last time Zhong bought shares from the open market was on May 4. He had acquired 3.6 million shares for about $4.9 million or at an average of $1.36 each.
On Aug 12, Yanlord reported 1HFY2021 earnings ended June of RMB823.4 million ($172.5 million), up 67% from RMB492.9 million in 1HFY2020. Revenue in 1HFY2021 was up 45% to RMB13.2 billion.
The bulk of the revenue came from its property development activities but its smaller business segments like property investment, hotel operations and property management posted similar magnitudes of growth as well.
Yanlord typically skips an interim dividend. It would rather pay a dividend after its full-year numbers were out. This year was no exception.
As of June 30, the company’s net asset value was RMB16.75 per share, slightly higher than the RMB16.16 as of Dec 30, 2020.
“Given the backdrop of strong economic recovery across the PRC during the reporting period, Yanlord’s development strategy of focusing on building premium developments in high-growth economic regions and cities within the PRC continues to deliver business growth,” says Zhong in the earnings commentary.
As at June 30, Yanlord and its joint venture and associates held a total gross floor area of around 10.734 million sqm of landbank in the prime location of 19 high-growth cities in six major economic regions in China, Singapore and Malaysia.
For the current 2HFY2021 period, projects slated for launch by Yanlord in Shanghai, where it is often active, includes Yanlord Arcadia; Poetic Villa; Moons Villa and Shanghai Olympic Garden (Phase 3, Section 2).
According to the company, it has another 15 other projects or phases of projects to be launched by the end of this financial year.
Thanks to a married deal
The husband and wife team of Gordon and Celine Tang saw an increase in their stake in SingHaiyi Group. On Aug 19, the Tangs via their vehicle Haiyi Holdings acquired nearly 233.2 million shares for $21 million in a married deal. The transaction works out to an average of 9 cents each.
The bulk of the shares, or 207 million, were sold by an entity called Hai Run, in which Yang Manlin, SingHaiyai’s non-executive independent director holds a deemed stake.
With that, Haiyi Holdings and Celine now own 2.96 billion shares or 70.34%, up from 64.8% previously.
Gordon, meanwhile, has a total interest of more than 3.18 billion shares or 75.56%, up from 70.02% previously. Besides his interest in Haiyi Holdings, Gordon has an interest in Acquire Wealth, another vehicle used to hold 220 million SingHaiyi shares, equivalent to 5.22% of the company.
On May 25, SingHaiyi reported that revenue for FY2021 ended March 31 was $152.9 million versus $57.2 million in the year earlier. The higher revenue was largely due to sales recognised for its various development projects such as Parc Clematis and The Gazania.
However, losses widened from $7.8 million in FY2020 to $13.3 million in FY2021. Part of this was because of a fair value recognition of $35 million in FY2020 that was not repeated for FY2021.
The company saw a “steady momentum” in the sales of its projects, upon the reopening of Singapore’s economy following the end of the “circuit breaker” period in June 2020.
