Sunway Construction third quarter net profit higher

PETALING JAYA: Sunway Construction Group Bhd’s (SunCon) net profit rose 8% to RM36.41mil in the third quarter ended Sept 30 from RM33.72mil in the corresponding quarter last year, driven by its construction and precast segments.

During the quarter in review, the construction company saw its revenue rising 13.4% to RM557.32mil from RM491.36mil in the previous corresponding quarter.

The group’s earnings per share (EPS) rose to 2.82 sen from 2.61 sen previously.

SunCon’s shares rose one sen to close at RM1.61 yesterday.

In a statement, the group said its construction segment reported a higher revenue due to increased contribution from the civil division, and higher pre-tax profit due to the finalisation of an account for a project that was completed this quarter.

SunCon managing director Chung Soo Kiong said the group was still actively seeking both external and in-house jobs.

“We are confident of achieving our targeted new orders of RM1.5bil for the year. In addition, we will continue our efforts to explore opportunities in Myanmar and India and hope to clinch our new contracts soon,” he said.

“We remain focused on delivering our order book in hand and will continue to improve our operational efficiency to further improve our margins,” he added.

SunCon’s outstanding order book as at September 2018 amounted to RM5.2bil, with a total of RM949mil in new orders in the first nine months of 2018, providing earnings visibility for the group for the next two years.

Subsequent to that, SunCon secured additional two new orders amounting to RM405mil, which brings the total orders for the year to RM1.4bil to-date.

For the nine months to September 2018, SunCon’s net profit rose 4.6% to RM108.12mil from RM103.41mil in the previous corresponding quarter, with EPS rising to 8.37 sen from eight sen previously.

The group’s cumulative revenue rose 22.8% to RM1.63bil from RM1.33bil previously.