Iskandar Waterfront City loss widens in Q1 on share option expenses

PETALING JAYA: Iskandar Waterfront City Bhd (IWCity), which has seen volatile share price movements of late due to the controversy over Bandar Malaysia, reported a widened net loss of RM56.46 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017 against RM4.8 million in the same period a year ago.
This was due to one-off expenses of RM54.73 million arising from the granting of the employees’ share option scheme on March 9 pursuant to FRS 2 fair value accounting.
Revenue for the quarter under review, however, jumped 70.5% from RM8 million to RM13.65 million, driven by higher percentage of completion of sales.
Looking ahead, IWCity said with the recent acceptance of the proposed merger exercise with Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Sdn Bhd, it expects the landbank of the merged entity to increase to about 6,700 acres comprising mainly prime waterfront land in Johor (meant for long-term projects spanning 25 to 30 years).
It will continue its effort in growing the existing businesses especially on the development segment by attracting more foreign and local investors.