CapitaMalls Asia profit down 30% to S$36.5m

This is for the third quarter, and fingers point to the one-off provision for its Hong Kong listing expenses as the culprit. Figures look good though in terms of the first nine months of the year.

CapitaMalls Asia Limited announced that it posted profit after tax and minority interests of S$250.6 million for the first nine months of 2011, a 25.7% increase over the S$199.3 million in the first nine months of 2010.

“Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) were S$324.7 million for YTD 2011, a 35.4% increase over the S$239.8 million for YTD 2010. This was underpinned by recurring EBIT (excluding revaluations) of about S$171.0 million for both its Singapore and Malaysia operations for YTD 2011,” said the company announcement.

Mr Liew Mun Leong, Chairman of CapitaMalls Asia, said, “Despite the uncertain global economy, Asia remains a growth region. Our key markets of Singapore, China and Malaysia are all expected to post economic growth in 2011 – about 5.0% for Singapore, 9.5% for China, and between 5.0% and 5.5% for Malaysia. Retail sales also continue to grow in all three markets, and this bodes well for our portfolio of well-located and mainly suburban malls catering to necessity shopping.”

Meanwhile Mr Lim Beng Chee, CEO of CapitaMalls Asia, said, “Shopper traffic in our malls in Singapore grew 2.9% in the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period last year. More importantly, our tenants’ sales grew even faster in the same period, at 6.7%. This shows that the additional shoppers we attract to our malls are spending more at our tenants’ shops.”

CMA’s Singapore malls, according to Mr Lim, have an occupancy rate of more than 96%.