Sino Land Co., the smallest developer in Hong Kong’s seven-member property index, said full- year profit excluding revaluation gains rose 26 percent after it booked more profits from apartment sales.
Profit excluding increases in real estate values rose to HK$4.4 billion ($565 million) for the year ended June 30 from HK$3.5 billion a year earlier, Sino Land said in a Hong Kong Stock Exchange statement today. That was higher than the median estimate of HK$3.91 billion of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Revenue from property sales jumped 92 percent to HK$9.3 billion from a year ago.
The developer, controlled by Singapore billionaire Robert Ng, booked profits from projects including the Hermitage, Palazzo and Lake Silver in the period under review. The company, which makes almost all its profit from Hong Kong, paid a below- expectation price last month for a building site in the Sha Tin district in a government land auction.
“The purchase is a real bargain for the company,” Adrian Ngan, a Hong Kong-based analyst at MF Global Holdings Ltd., said before the earnings were announced. “Sino Land and its partners would be in a better position to expand their footprint in the area,” where there are six more sites made available by the government for sale.
Hong Kong developers begin selling apartments before they are built and only book profits upon completion.
Price Growth Slowing
Growth in Hong Kong home prices is slowing after it surged more than 70 percent since early 2009 as mortgage rates rise and as the city’s government implements a series of measures to curb the formation of an asset bubble. Steps include making more land available for sale to bolster the supply of new apartments.
Sino Land’s shares rose 2.2 percent to close at HK$12.16 in Hong Kong trading today, before the results were announced. The shares have fallen 16.4 percent this year, the second-biggest loser in the Hang Seng Property Index, which dropped 11 percent during the period.
Net income at Sino Land rose to HK$10.5 billion from HK$6.09 billion a year earlier.
Ng is the eldest son of the company’s late founder, Ng Teng Fong, and has held the chairmanship since 1981. The Ng family is listed by Forbes as Singapore’s richest with an estimated wealth of $8.9 billion.
Sino Land proposes to pay a final dividend of 35 Hong Kong cents a share and a bonus share for every ten shares held, compared with 30 cents a year earlier.