KUALA LUMPUR, January 30, 2009 – The Al-Hadharah Boustead REIT (Al-Hadharah REIT) delivered a strong performance in its second financial year ending 31 December 2008 achieving a realised profit of RM64 million compared with last year’s RM52 million. This was achieved on the back of a revenue of RM68 million against last year’s RM55 million.
The key contributing factor in the increase in revenue was due to the performance based profit sharing of RM26 million compared with last year’s RM17 million.
YBhg. Tan Sri Dato’ Lodin Wok Kamaruddin, Chairman of Boustead REIT Managers Sdn Bhd said, “Given our performance into our second financial year, we continue to hold strong our position as the second largest and the only Islamic plantation REIT in the nation. Of course, our record earnings were due to the remarkable performance of crude palm oil prices particularly during the first half of this financial period.”
“Despite adverse market conditions which had a strong impact on global CPO prices, we were positively impacted particularly in the first half of the year which saw an average CPO price of RM3,026 per metric tonne (MT). We closed the year with an annual average price of RM2,627 per MT compared with last year’s RM2,332 per MT.”
For the financial year 2008, the Al-Hadharah REIT is committed to a fixed dividend of 7.38 sen per annum irrespective of market conditions. In tandem with the positive performance, the Managers have declared a total dividend of 11.03 sen for this year. To date, 3.69 sen has been distributed and paid on 29 August 2008. The remaining 7.34 sen will be paid on 27 February 2009 to unitholders on the register as at 17 February 2009.
Al-Hadharah REIT’s net asset value per unit jumped to RM1.26 due to acquisitions and a revaluation exercise undertaken on the existing assets, which resulted in an increase of the market value of its plantation assets portfolio to more than RM800 million. This exercise saw a fair value gain of RM129 million on the Fund’s plantation assets bringing total profit for the year to RM190 million.
“It was indeed a good year as we strengthened our Fund size and expanded our asset base with the acquisition of the Malakoff and Bebar estates which saw an increase of total land area amounting to more than 3,700 hectares bringing total hectarage to over 16,000.”
“We expect to see immediate benefits particularly from enhanced revenue given our expanded asset base and subject to favourable market conditions. We will continue to look out for viable assets for injection into the Fund in the foreseeable future,” YBhg. Tan Sri Dato’ Lodin concluded.
Forward looking statements
This release may contain certain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial conditions, results of operations and business of the Fund and certain plans and objectives of Boustead REIT Managers Sdn Bhd with respect to these items. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future and there are many factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.-ends-
For further information, please call:
Reshvinder Kaur at 017 2757 985 or Ng Siew Yen at 03 7958 8348
Or email to: acorncommunications@acornco.com.my
