PETALING JAYA: Berjaya Land Bhd (BLand) saw its pre-tax profit for its first quarter ended Sept 30, 2020 fall 72% to RM23 million from RM81.52 million a year ago, mainly due to lower revenue, higher share of losses from the group’s associate companies, particularly from Berjaya Kyoto Development (S) Pte Ltd group which reported lower occupancy rates due to the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, higher finance cost incurred and unfavourable currency translation differences.
Its revenue dropped 8% to RM1.46 billion compared with RM1.58 billion previously mainly due to lower revenue from the gaming business segment operated by Sports Toto Malaysia Sdn Bhd; lower revenue from the hotel and resorts business segment which was adversely affected by the international border closures and travel restrictions and reported a significantly low average occupancy rates for the current quarter as compared to previous year corresponding quarter; as well as lower property progress billings reported by the property development and investment business segment.
The above were mitigated by higher revenue reported by HR Owen, which registered a revenue growth of 10.8% compared with the previous year’s corresponding quarter mainly due to higher sales generated from the new car sector arising from backlog delivery fulfilment after the earlier Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.
Looking ahead, the group said its number forecast operator (NFO) business was able to resume to full operations during the current quarter under review amid the “new normal” environment with the necessary health and safety measures in place. The directors are confident that it will continue to maintain its market share in the NFO business for the remaining quarters of the financial year ending June 30, 2021.
The property development business segment is expected to be impacted by slower property sales mainly due to the expected liquidity squeeze arising from the contraction of the economy in the short term.
“The tourism industry was about to kickstart its recovery with domestic tourism after the initial lifting of domestic travel restrictions although international travels are still restricted.
“However, the occurrence of second and third Covid-19 waves have again dampened the recovery rate of the tourism industry. As such, the directors expect the occupancy rates and the revenue from events at the hotels, resorts, clubs and recreation business segments to remain low,” it said in its Bursa filing.
Taking all these factors into account, the directors expect the performance of the group’s business operations for the remaining quarters of the financial year ending June 30, 2021 to remain challenging.
