Eco World upbeat on expansion strategy

By Sharen Kaur
sharen@mediaprima.com.my

ECO World Group Bhd expects its asset injection exercise and property sale to give it surplus cash to support its expansion costs.

The developer has been aggressively acquiring land over the last 10 months in the Klang Valley, Johor and Penang.

Its last major transaction was in March, when it acquired 128ha near Kota Kemuning for RM470.67 million cash.

Eco World has set a sales target of RM2 billion for fiscal year 2014 and RM3 billion for 2015.

Its president and chief executive officer Datuk Chang Khim Wah is upbeat that Eco World will achieve its sales target for this year.

“We are in the luxury market, township development, business park, and integrated projects.
In our experience in the property cycle, there will always be something that does well, even amid soft market conditions,” he said at Invest Malaysia 2014, here, yesterday.

Eco World’s first two projects — EcoBotanic and EcoSky — have achieved combined total sales of RM1.13 billion as at March 31 this year.

Last month, Eco World showcased EcoMajestic in Semenyih, Eco Spring and Eco Summer
in Tebrau Teguh, and Eco Business Park I in Iskandar Malaysia, with a combined gross development value (GDV) of RM20.8 billion.

Chang said for Phase 1 of EcoMajestic, there was a 95 per cent take-up rate for the 612 units of terraced homes.

The two projects in Tebrau Teguh saw a take-up of 85 per cent for the combined 197 cluster and semi-detached units and 497 terraced homes.

He said the strategies used by Eco World to deliver a strong and sustained growth is dependent on several factors, including the size, location, landbank quality, diversity of product, accessibility, three-tier security and execution capability.

The asset-injection exercise, meanwhile, is expected to be completed by end-October, where Eco World will have RM1.3 billion cash in hand, which it will spend on expansion.

Eco World has a total of 11 projects with GDV of RM43 billion.

It has five other projects that will be unveiled over time. They include EcoSanctuary in the Klang Valley, the newly-revamped EcoTropics, Eco Business Park II and Eco Business Park III in Iskandar Malaysia and EcoMeadows on mainland Penang.