MAINBOARD-listed Koh Brothers Group and its Catalist-listed subsidiary Koh Brothers Eco Engineering both expect to report a net loss for the six months ended June 30, owing to the adverse impact of Covid-19, they said on Friday. 

"The imposition of circuit breaker measures by the Singapore government in April 2020 has severely impacted the group's businesses. Although the circuit breaker measures have been gradually lifted, these measures will not be sufficient to restore business activities to pre-Covid-19 levels," the parent company said.

Koh Brothers Group's revenue from the construction and building materials and real estate divisions have therefore been hit.

Koh Brothers Eco Engineering, which provides construction and civil engineering services under the Koh Brothers Group's construction division, said that this sector was severely affected by the spike in Covid-19 infections among foreign workers living in dormitories.

Koh Brothers Eco Engineering said: "The stoppage of most of the group's construction projects has caused delays to project schedules, increased project costs and disruption in project management."

The extent of the delays remains uncertain. Construction works did not immediately resume to their normal level of operations even after the circuit breaker period was lifted on June 1, as the group had to meet additional safe and controlled restart measures for each construction project, before work could resume.

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"As a result of the aforementioned factors, the delay in the normalisation of the level of operations has weighed on the budgets of ongoing projects," Koh Brothers Eco Engineering said.

Koh Brothers Eco Engineering expects that it will continue to face a challenging landscape in the near-term, it said.

Koh Brothers Group and Koh Brothers Eco Engineering will both publish their first-half results on or before Aug 14.