IJM Corp managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Soam Heng Choon(filepic) said the company’s construction and industry divisions would continue to benefit from the ongoing infrastructure spending under the 11th Malaysia Plan.
PETALING JAYA: IJM Corp Bhd posted a 9% rise in net profit to RM126.40mil for the first quarter ended June 30 compared with the same quarter last year, mainly due to improved earnings from the construction, property development and infrastructure divisions.
Revenue in the quarter grew to RM1.47bil from RM1.31bil a year earlier. The company’s shares closed three sen lower at RM3.36 yesterday.
The company said in a statement that revenue from the construction division increased to RM532.9mil, as construction works at certain major infrastructure projects gathered momentum.
It added that projects that were secured in the previous year further supplemented the division’s current-quarter results.
The construction-based company said the property division reported marginally higher revenue by 2% to RM298.7mil compared with the same quarter in the previous year, while revenue of the industry division increased by 10% to RM275.1mil.
This was mainly due to increased orders from local and overseas projects, which boosted the delivered tonnage of piles (by 4.9%) and quarry products (by 17.4%), it pointed out.
Revenue of the plantation division increased by 32.4% to RM184.6mil, mainly due to higher crude palm oil prices and sales volume. “Crop production increased by 26.1% over the previous year’s corresponding quarter, as more crops were harvested from the larger area attaining maturity in the Indonesian operations.”
IJM Corp said its infrastructure division recorded an increase in revenue of 29.3% to RM176.8mil, mainly attributable to the increase in cargo throughput handled by the company’s port concession, with the current quarter’s cargo throughput expanding by 73% compared with the previous year’s corresponding quarter.
In the same statement, IJM Corp managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Soam Heng Choon said the company’s construction and industry divisions would continue to benefit from the ongoing infrastructure spending under the 11th Malaysia Plan.
He said the divisions would also benefit from the strong outstanding order book currently.
“Furthermore, the strong balance sheet of the group puts it in an advantageous position to expand the capacity of its concession and investment property assets.”
Soam also said the fast-maturing plantation landbank profile would provide fresh fruit bunch production growth in the next few years.
“Despite the challenging property market outlook, the group’s property division expects to sustain its performance on the back of unbilled sales in excess of RM1.7bil,” Soam said.
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, IJM Corp said the construction division expected the market outlook to remain encouraging based on a record level of RM8.7bil of outstanding order book.
“Despite the challenging business environment the group expects a reasonable performance for the current financial year,” said the company.
