Will Singapore’s tepid property market sink CityDev in FY16?

It expects $400m of sales by end-FY16.

City Development’s (CityDev) overseas investments are coming to the developer’s rescue as the outlook for the Singapore property market grows increasingly bleak.

According to a report by DBS, amid the uncertainty in the local property environment, CityDev’s move to diversify into the overseas property market is finally paying off. CityDev anticipates a windfall of about $400m of property sales in end-FY16 as property projects are completed.

Moreover, most of the ongoing overseas projects such as China, UK, Australia, Japan, Korea, and US are slated for completion from 2017 onwards. DBS believes that this could offset some impact of a weak Singapore property market.

Meanwhile, DBS notes that hotel operations could offer CityDev cashflow stability.

“Despite hotel operations showing some weakness in FY15, mainly impacted by lower revPAR at its Asian hotels, hotel operations remained as the largest revenue contributor (54%) among all divisions, which implies a substantial proportion of stable income,” DBS states.

DBS cautions, however, that any further weakness in GBP could hurt its Millennium & Copthorne property’s contributions to the group.