Keppel Land grows profit to $134.7mln in the first half of 2010

Strong contributions came from Reflections and Caribbean at Keppel Bay and Marina Bay Suites as well as up sales in China and Indonesia properties.

Keppel Land on Tuesday released its financial report for the 1st half of the year ending on 30 June 2010, with flying colors, as the company’s profit grew by 41.6 per cent to $134.7 million, higher than the $95.1 million profit in the first half of 2009.

According to the report, about 8,500 new homes were sold in Singapore in the first half, more than 50% of the 14,800 homes sold in the year 2009.

This year, Keppel Land has also acquired a residential site at Lakeside Drive, strategically located next to the Lakeside SMRT station and consists of about 630 units.

In the opening of Marina Bay Sands, Keppel was able to sell 40 units of Marina Bay Suites and with the opening of the Universal Studios in Resorts World Sentosa, it sold 77 units, the report said.

Keppel Land also saw an increase in net profit from property trading which grew 26.4 per cent to $104.3 million in the first half of 2010. Keppel said it is largely due to stronger earnings from Reflections and Caribbean at Keppel Bay.

The Group's Chief Executive Officer Kevin Wong said, “We will continue to look for opportunities to build up our landbank in Singapore, whether it is through government land sales or private transactions.”

Overseas profit was also reported to surge for Keppel as operations increased 82.7 per cent to $49.5 million mainly due to property trading of The Arcadia and Villa Riviera in China. Keppel sold over 1,200 units mostly in The Botanica in Chengdu and Central Park City is Wuxi. The company in June also launched The Springdale, located near Pudong International Airport, tapping the opening of Disneyland. The report said out of the 120 units, 79 have already been sold. In Indonesia, Jakarta City Garden has sold 124 units in the first half of 2010.

Net profit from property investment also rose 37.6 per cent to $27.1 million due to higher share of profit from K-REIT Asia while net profit from fund management increased 78.4 per cent to $15.7 million due to higher acquisition and management fees earned by K-REIT Asia Management and Alpha Investment Partners.

Moving forward, Wong said the company is determined to continue expanding as long as the market permits.

“For the first half of the year, Keppel Land and its fund management units have made acquisitions in Singapore and overseas. With promising growth in Asia and Keppel Land’s strong balance sheet, we will continue to expand, focusing on developing residential, office, townships and mixed developments. We have a pipeline of more than 4,000 homes which can be launched this year. The timing and extent of the launches will obviously depend on market conditions and the pace of the economic recovery,” Wong said in his opening speech for the presentation of the financial report on Tuesday.