First Sponsor profits up 30% to $33.3m in Q3

Higher sales in China and the Netherlands boosted the growth.

Property developer First Sponsor recorded a 30% QoQ gain in net profit to $33.3m in Q3 largely thanks to robust cash flows from projects in China and the Netherlands, according to an SGX filing.

Since their IPO in 2014, the latest profit reading marks the firm’s 19th quarterly growth out of 22 quarters of reporting results.

The developer yielded an average total return of 16.5% YTD to $169.4m in September 2019 from $145.4m in the same month last year, mainly due to a $15.8m and S$11.7mincrease in revenue from property sales and hotel operations respectively.

Revenue, however, slipped 16.6% to $44.59m in 3Q 2019 from $53.49m in the same period last year. Gross profit also fell 13.7% to $28.4m in 3Q 2019.

Strong pre-sales performances in the Star of the East and Emerald of the Orient in Dongguan contributed to growth in income, CEO Neo Teck Pheng said in a statement. Residential units of The Pinnacle and Wanjiang Victory Land are expected to go on pre-sale by late 2019 to early 2020 and late 2020, respectively.

The 193-room Hampton by Hilton hotel in Utrecht, the Netherlands has achieved earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $1.5m (EUR1m) in its first 3.5 months of operation, and an occupancy rate of 72.7% from its opening last June 17 to September 30 this year.