KUALA LUMPUR: Sunway Construction Group Bhd’s (SunCon) net profit for the second quarter ended June 30, 2019 fell 7.2% to RM33.19 million from RM35.77 million a year ago, due to lower contribution from both the construction and precast segments.
Subsequently, the group’s revenue decreased by 19.1% to RM440.18 million compared with RM544.28 million previously.
SunCon proposed its first interim dividend of 3.5 sen per share for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2019 which is more than 60% payout from year-to-date profit after tax and minority interest.
For the six-month period, its net profit fell 10.3% to RM64.2 million from RM71.54 million, while revenue dropped 18% to RM880.21 million from RM1.07 billion last year.
SunCon’s outstanding order book as at June 2019 amounted to RM5.8 billion with a total of RM1.54 billion in new orders received to date, exceeding management’s target of new order book wins of RM1.5 billion within 1H2019 with job wins totaling RM1.54 billion.
Group managing director Chung Soo Kiong said the group is still pursuing various tenders locally and abroad to secure their first overseas job this year.
“We are positive about the outlook for the domestic construction sector as the RM44 billion East Coast Rail Link was revived. There are also opportunities within the sustainable energy sector such as in the development of Large Scale Solar Phase 3. We are expecting more projects to be announced in the next 12 months which was reflected with Bursa Malaysia’s FBM Construction Index gaining more than 40% since beginning of this year,” he said in a statement.
In addition to local prospects, Asean is also an exciting market which SunCon is exploring. In Myanmar, SunCon has teamed up with Capital Construction Ltd, the construction division of Capital Diamond Star Group and submitted a tender for mixed development project in Mandalay, Myanmar.
“We are also preparing to submit three bids in road infrastructure projects in India by end of this year or early next year. In Singapore, we have ventured into piling. SunCon is very hopeful to secure our first overseas project for the year,” he added.
