Magna Prima on track to pay third dividend
Posted on | January 9, 2008
By THE EDGE
KUALA LUMPUR: Property firm Magna Prima Bhd will allocate a fifth of its fiscal 2007 net profit as dividends in anticipation of higher earnings from some RM2 billion worth of projects in hand, said its chief executive Lim Ching Choy.
The dividend payout will be Magna Prima’s third since its listing in Malaysia some 11 years ago.
“With the year-end result encouraging, we are targeting to issue about 20% of our 2007 net profit for dividends,” Lim said after the company’s EGM yesterday.
Magna Prima last rewarded its shareholders with a dividend in 1998, the year after its listing on the Second Board, and 1999, according to its annual report.
Magna Prima’s earnings have been on the rise, having turned itself around from a net loss of RM11 million in the year ended December 2005 to a net profit of RM93,228 in 2006, according to its annual report.
It posted a net profit of RM7.3 million in the third quarter to Sept 30, 2007, compared with a loss of RM2.7 million a year earlier. Revenue leapt 15-fold to RM85.5 milion from RM5.7 million previously.
Magna Prima’s RM2 billion portfolio of property projects comprises six undertakings within the Klang Valley. Of the six, four are on-going.
Current jobs include the “The Avare” upmarket condominium on a 0.4ha freehold site along Lorong Kuda, off Jalan Tun Razak and Jalan Binjai, and the RM610 million “Metro Prima” mixed development on a 35ha leasehold land in Kepong.
Upcoming initiatives include a RM735 million mixed development on a 4ha freehold tract next to Jalan Kuching, and a RM112.5 million job on a 1.9ha site in Shah Alam.
Magna Prima has a balance landbank of 41ha (102 acres) in the Klang Valley, and unbilled real estate sales of about RM300 million, which will sustain earnings for the next two years, said Lim.
Going forward, he said Magna Prima’s growth path may include mergers and acquisitions as part of its plans to graduate to the Main Board. He did not elaborate.
A main board status is deemed important to attract foreign investors into a Malaysian listed firm.
Magna Prima shareholders approved yesterday the developer’s plan to buy the Jalan Kuching site for RM57.9 million. Magna Prima shares rose 1% or 5 sen to end at RM5.25.
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