Propnex' profits soar 278.8% to $7.58m in Q1

This is attributed to the higher number of transactions completed.

Propnex’ profits after tax and minority interests (PATMI) soared 278.8% YoY in Q1 to $7.58m from $2m over the same period last year, an announcement revealed. Revenue also increased by 82.7% YoY to $135.62m from $74.21m previously.

The increase was mainly due to the higher number of transactions completed in Q1, following the recovery of the private residential market from the property cooling measures of July 2018.

The growth in revenue is also attributed to the rise of commission income from project marketing services and income from agency services, which grew approximately $45.8m and $15.9m, respectively.

In addition, the group’s balance sheet remained healthy with cash and cash equivalents of $89.8m as at 31 March, an increase of $10.2m when compared to $79.6m in the previous year.

Further, the private new home sales segment saw a 16.9% YoY increase with 2,149 units moved in Q1, largely buoyed by rightly priced projects such as The M, Executive Condominium Parc Canberra, and Treasure at Tampines.

Despite this, the group believes that the private residential segment volume could possibly contract by approximately 27% YoY in 2020 to an estimated 14,000 units, against 19,150 units in 2019 based on Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) statistics.

On the public housing front, Propnex estimates that the Housing Development Board (HDB) resale market volume could possibly be in the range of 21,000 to 22,000 for 2020, an expected drop of 7% to 11% YoY as compared to the 23,714 HDB resale flats transacted in 2019.