By Naveen Sachdev
I-Berhad may post better results in fiscal year 2019, given that it will have more operational property assets across the 72-acre i-City development in the capital city of Selangor.
March 23 will see the soft opening of the 940,000 sq ft (net lettable area) Central i-City Mall with 350 outlets. The official opening is scheduled on April 27.
Next year the four-star DoubleTree by Hilton i-City Hotel will open with 300 rooms in the city of Digital Lights.
i-City will also have two international convention centres totalling 69,000 sq ft.
In a filing to Bursa Malaysia on February 27, I-Berhad said that it recorded a net profit of RM58.7 million on revenue of RM375.1 million for the financial year ended December 31, 2018.
This was despite all the challenges in the property market.
While most listed developers posted lower results, interestingly for I-Berhad the biggest contributor was property development, accounting for 94 per cent of total segmental results.
Although revenue declined 18 per cent from a year ago, net profit fell a lesser seven per cent as compared to 2017's restated profit after tax due to higher taxes incurred that year.
With the company's adoption of new MFRS accounting policies in January 2018, restated profit after tax for 2017 was RM63.2 million with revenue correspondingly adjusted to RM455.2 million.
I-Berhad group executive chairman Tan Sri Lim Kim Hong said in a statement that the company delivered credible results for 2018 notwithstanding the challenging property development market
environment as it was able to improve the performance of the leisure and property investment segments.
Five years ago I-Berhad 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.
Lim said, 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.
For the past few years, most of the investment properties were still under construction and thus did not contribute to the bottom line of I-Berhad.
Lim expected the scenario to be different from this year and onward with the opening of Central i-City Mall.
"The mall will have a positive impact on our car park utilisation and demand for the other commercial spaces at CentralWalk in the coming years. At the same time, the new snow fall experience that was introduced in 2018 for our SnoWalk attraction and the opening of the i-City Convention Centre will help to drive additional traffic to i-City," he said.
Lim said, while the property development market may continue to be challenging in the near term given the overhang of unsold properties in the country, i-City’s longer-term value proposition will continue to set it apart.
The recent comments by Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari on the potential of i-City being the state’s “Golden Triangle” area bears testament to what the company is building in the state's capital city, he said.
"We believe i-City is already well on its way to being the heart of Selangor’s Golden Triangle given the levels of economic opportunities on hand, with its unique blend of corporate, residential and leisure components key ingredients of almost-perfect living," said Lim.
i-City is recognised as a catalyst in the transformation of Shah Alam into an international City with over RM10 billion Gross Development Value for the project.
I-Berhad may post better results in fiscal year 2019, given that it will have more operational property assets across the 72-acre i-City development in the capital city of Selangor.
 |
| I-Berhad group executive chairman Tan Sri Lim Kim Hong (I-BERHAD/PIC) |
Next year the four-star DoubleTree by Hilton i-City Hotel will open with 300 rooms in the city of Digital Lights.
 |
| DoubleTree by Hilton i-City Hotel will open with 300 rooms (I-BERHAD/PIC) |
In a filing to Bursa Malaysia on February 27, I-Berhad said that it recorded a net profit of RM58.7 million on revenue of RM375.1 million for the financial year ended December 31, 2018.
This was despite all the challenges in the property market.
While most listed developers posted lower results, interestingly for I-Berhad the biggest contributor was property development, accounting for 94 per cent of total segmental results.
Although revenue declined 18 per cent from a year ago, net profit fell a lesser seven per cent as compared to 2017's restated profit after tax due to higher taxes incurred that year.
With the company's adoption of new MFRS accounting policies in January 2018, restated profit after tax for 2017 was RM63.2 million with revenue correspondingly adjusted to RM455.2 million.
I-Berhad group executive chairman Tan Sri Lim Kim Hong said in a statement that the company delivered credible results for 2018 notwithstanding the challenging property development market
environment as it was able to improve the performance of the leisure and property investment segments.
Five years ago I-Berhad 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.
Lim said, 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.
For the past few years, most of the investment properties were still under construction and thus did not contribute to the bottom line of I-Berhad.
Lim expected the scenario to be different from this year and onward with the opening of Central i-City Mall.
 |
| The official opening for Central i-City Mall is scheduled on April 27. (I-BERHAD/PIC) |
"The mall will have a positive impact on our car park utilisation and demand for the other commercial spaces at CentralWalk in the coming years. At the same time, the new snow fall experience that was introduced in 2018 for our SnoWalk attraction and the opening of the i-City Convention Centre will help to drive additional traffic to i-City," he said.
Lim said, while the property development market may continue to be challenging in the near term given the overhang of unsold properties in the country, i-City’s longer-term value proposition will continue to set it apart.
The recent comments by Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari on the potential of i-City being the state’s “Golden Triangle” area bears testament to what the company is building in the state's capital city, he said.
"We believe i-City is already well on its way to being the heart of Selangor’s Golden Triangle given the levels of economic opportunities on hand, with its unique blend of corporate, residential and leisure components key ingredients of almost-perfect living," said Lim.
i-City is recognised as a catalyst in the transformation of Shah Alam into an international City with over RM10 billion Gross Development Value for the project.
/ends
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