TAN Chong International announced on Thursday (Jul 7) that it expects its after-tax profit for the first half of the year ended Jun 30, 2022 to surge to HK$170 million (S$30.3 million), up from HK$78.6 million the year before.

In its bourse filing, the auto dealer attributed this to the disposal of one of the group’s properties in Singapore.

In November last year, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of the company had granted a call option to a unit of City Developments to purchase 2 properties along Upper Bukit Timah Road for S$126.3 million. The call option was subsequently exercised on Apr 13, 2022.

It added that the group’s business in the Asia-Pacific remains at about the same level as in the first half of 2021, with one major negative factor being the limited supply of products due to supply-chain disruptions.

“The second half of 2022 should see an increase in the supply of products to meet the Group’s sales requirement as the supply-chain issues of its principals improve,” the company said.

It also noted in the filing that the company is expecting to incur unrealised loss amounting to HK$7.7 million in the first half of 2022, compared to an unrealised loss of HK$1.4 million in the year-ago period.

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Tan Chong said that the loss is due to share-price changes of its listed investments, which are marked to market and therefore unrealised.

Shares of Tan Chong closed flat at HK$1.93 on Thursday, before the announcement.