RETAIL-cum-properties group Second Chance Properties yesterday reported a 95.4 per cent plunge in net profit to $628,000 for its financial fourth quarter ended June 30, 2009 – from $13.5 million for Q4 FY2008.
The chief cause was a Q4 shift in fair value changes for properties – to a $1.32 million deficit from a $13.8 million gain for the previous Q4.
The Q4 results would have been worse if not for a 97 per cent fall in deficit on fair valuation of securities held for trading – to $230,000 from $7.64 million.
Not helping was a 39.8 per cent dive in Q4 revenue to $9.3 million and an even bigger 55.1 per cent drop in gross profit to $4.86 million.
The Q4 performance resulted in a 56.7 per cent plunge in net profit to $10.4 million for the full year ended June 30, 2009 – from FY2008’s $24.1 million.
FY2009 also saw a 10.1 per cent fall in group revenue to $47.8 million. And gross profit fell a bigger 17.7 per cent to $24.6 million as cost of sales showed just a marginal fall of 0.34 per cent.
Even at the operating level, Q4 and FY2009 saw a 68 per cent and 28.5 per cent drop respectively in operating profit to $2.64 million and $14.7 million.
But, said Second Chance, FY2009 Ebitda (which it described as operating earnings before interest expenses, tax, depreciation, divestment and revaluation gains/deficits and foreign exchange differences) rose 5.8 per cent to $14.6 million. In FY2008, Second Chance’s revenue included divestment gains from quoted securities of $7.2 million.
No dividend was declared for the April-June period as was the case for the year-ago period. For FY2009, Second Chance had earlier paid dividends totalling 3.5 cents, which it said represented a yield of 15.2 per cent based on its shares’ June 30 closing price. The group said that in line with its high dividend policy, it would be recommending a dividend of 3.8 cents for FY2010.
Second Chance said that ‘another strong feature is the group’s cash flow’. ‘The net cash flow from operating activities is $9.5 million in FY2009 as compared to $9.2 million in FY2008.’
It said that it is confident that FY2010 will be a profitable year.
The stock was last traded at 31.5 cents.
Source : Business Times – 28 Aug 2009
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