Yongnam Holdings posts better results in FY 2017, but still in the red

YONGNAM Holdings on Thursday posted an improvement in its bottom line for the 2017 fiscal year, but the engineering and construction services company continues to hover in the red.

For the full-year ended Dec 31, 2017, Yongnam's net loss halved to S$15.8 million on the back of lower gross loss due to improved margins for some ongoing projects.

Loss per share (LPS) for FY2017 was 3.25 Singapore cents, compared to an LPS of 6.66 Singapore cents the year before.

The improvement in earnings was also due to a drop in general and administrative expenses that declined by 19 per cent to S$15.7 million in FY 2017.

This was attributable mainly to lower staff costs, professional fees and other general and administrative expenses as well as the absence of allowance for doubtful debt in FY2017.

Yongnam's revenue for fiscal 2017 dropped 4.6 per cent to S$306.7 million due to lower revenue contributions from the group's structural steelworks and mechanical engineering businesses, which "more than offset" the increase in contributions from the specialist civil engineering segment.

Yongnam's net asset value per share decreased from 63.05 Singapore cents as at Dec 31, 2016 to 55.91 Singapore cents as at Dec 31, 2017, due mainly to a share placement exercise that was completed on Oct 17 last year.

Seow Soon Yong, Yongnam's CEO, said: "Despite the continued challenging business and operating environment in FY2017, the group stayed focused on managing costs and realising greater efficiencies in our operations."

The group is "actively pursuing" S$1.2 billion worth of new infrastructure and commercial projects in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Malaysia, and the Middle East.

Yongnam closed unchanged at S$0.30 on Thursday.