Boustead's Q1 profit down 61%, impacted by Boustead Projects' demerger

BOUSTEAD Singapore's net profit for the first quarter ended June 30, 2015, fell 61 per cent to S$6.3 million, from S$16.1 million in the year-ago period. This was on the back of revenue falling 8 per cent to S$116.7 million, from S$126.5 million.

The demerger of Boustead Projects, in which approximately 48.8 per cent of its shares were distributed as a dividend in specie on April 30, resulted in a significant rise in profit attributable to non-controlling interests, explained Boustead in a statement on Wednesday.

For comparison, if the net profit for Q1 FY2015 had been adjusted to take into account the demerger and other gains and losses, then Q1 FY2016 net profit would have been 11 per cent lower than the previous year, said the infrastructure-related engineering services and geo-spatial technology group.

Wong Fong Fui, chairman and group chief executive officer of Boustead, said: "We expected our business performance to be affected by the current economic environment, especially in the global oil and gas industries and the regional industrial real estate market. Nonetheless, I am confident that with our healthy balance sheet, we have flexibility to navigate this down cycle and position ourselves should there be consolidation within the industries we operate in."

The group's net cash position stood at S$54.5 million at the end of Q1 FY2016. Since the beginning of FY2016, it has secured new contracts of approximately S$78 million. The group's order book backlog (as at the end of Q1 FY2016 plus new orders since) stands at S$344 million.