Bonvests Q2 profit plunges 80.5%

DRAGGED by a plunge in revaluation gain on investment properties, Bonvests Holdings reported a 80.5 per cent drop in net profit for the second quarter ended June 30 to S$6.81 million.

Revenue grew 12.8 per cent to S$50.86 million, thanks to higher revenue from the property rental, hotel and industrial divisions that mitigated lower revenue from the investment division. But this growth was outpaced by a 72.8 per cent slump in revaluation gain on investment properties to S$8.72 million.

Bonvests' core businesses are in property development and investment, hotel ownership and management, waste management and contract cleaning of buildings.

Since the completion of the villas development project in Tunisia in 2008, the group has not embarked on any new property development project. It owns commercial buildings Liat Towers and Yishun Ten Complex in Singapore and a commercial property in Perth, as well as a few hotels in Singapore, Perth, Zanzibar, Mauritius, Tunis and Maldives.

Bonvests said that the property rental market in Singapore and Tunis is expected to remain stable in the near term, while market conditions in the countries where it operates hotels are expected to remain challenging. It has commenced construction of a hotel in Bintan, a second hotel in the Maldives and a hotel in Douz, Tunisia.

"The industrial division will continue to be prudent in its cost management and to optimise its resources due to the prevailing competitive market environment in the waste management and contract cleaning industries," it added.