Koh Brothers Group, which is in construction and property development, has reported earnings of $4.9 million for 2HFY2021 ended Dec 2021, up 67% y-o-y.
Revenue in the same period was down 20% y-o-y to $111.7 million.
Earnings for the whole of FY2021 was $6.9 million. For FY2020, it made a loss of $14.8 million. Revenue was up 4% y-o-y to $252.6 million.
A big chunk of the company’s earnings was lifted by fair value gains on investment properties. Its “other gains” increased by a total of 178% to $8.7 million.
The bottomline was further helped by a drop of 10.4% in impairment made and also lower financing costs.
Francis Koh, managing director and CEO calls FY2021 a “ray of hope after the storm”.
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“However, we are mindful of the uncertainties that the construction industry will continue to face in the wake of the Omicron variant,” he says.
“In addition to the impact of the manpower shortages and labour costs brought about by the existing border control measures, the rising prices of construction materials will also affect the pace of recovery of the industry,” adds Koh.
The company’s construction order book has hit $775 million.
Following the recent set of property cooling measures, Koh Brothers expect the private residential market to “remain challenging” and will “remain cautious and selective in replenishing its land bank going forward.”
The company plans to pay a final dividend of 0.2 cent per share. It didn’t pay any this timelast year.
Koh Brothers shares last traded at 16 cents. It is down 2.5% year to date.
