Soilbuild Construction sinks deeper into the red for H1 2020

SOILBUILD Construction sank deeper into the red for its half-year ended June 30, as the suspension of business activities and extension of construction periods for its projects hit its business hard.

Its losses deepened to S$17.94 million for the period, deteriorating from a loss of S$1.83 million a year ago.

Revenue fell 37 per cent to S$69.2 million, mostly attributed to the decrease in construction activities, especially during the "circuit-breaker" period in Singapore.

Loss per share was 2.13 Singapore cents, from a loss per share of 0.27 cents previously.

In its outlook, the group said that even though it has been granted approval by the relevant authorities to resume its activities at its construction sites and factories, the pace of resumption of works has remained slow due to additional or stringent safety and health requirements on manpower. These include swab tests to be conducted on the workforce at sites, clearance at dormitories to be secured prior to granting of permits to let workers start work again. 

The group said that it will continue to implement additional safety measures and policies so that it can resume its all its operations in Singapore. Soilbuild expects that construction progress and cost for all its projects would be affected in the near term and will "take all necessary steps" to monitor the group's exposure in these areas.

The group said that its operations in its Malaysia and Myanmar markets are at a more advanced stage of work resumption, and that the company will work towards going back to pre-Covid-19 levels of efficiency and capacity.

The group's order book as at June 30 was S$585.8 million, comprising S$533.0 million of construction projects and S$52.8 million of precast and prefabrication supply contracts.

Soilbuild's shares closed flat at 2.7 Singapore cents on Tuesday, before the release of its results.