Gamuda confident as earnings improve

Petaling Jaya: Construction titan Gamuda Bhd is confident of its prospects for the next financial year ending July 31, 2024 (FY24) as it believes its performance will be driven by a number of overseas construction activities.

The group’s projects in Australia and Taiwan continue to pick up pace, underpinned by full year contribution of the newly acquired Australian transport projects business of Downer Transports Projects and property sales including higher contribution from its newly launched quick-turnaround projects (QTP) of the property division.

Gamuda released its fourth quarter (4Q23) and full-year results for the fiscal year ending July 31, 2023 (FY23) yesterday, which saw net profit staying relatively stable at RM251.7mil, compared to the RM255.2mil it garnered for the corresponding three months of 2022.

This came on the back of an 84% year-on-year (y-o-y) surge in revenue to RM3.4bil which the group attributed to the momentum gain in the work progress of its Australia and Taiwan projects.

For the whole of FY23, net earnings more than doubled y-o-y to RM1.8bil from the RM806mil recorded in FY22, while turnover similarly jumped 68% y-o-y to RM8.2bil.

Gamuda credited the significant increase in FY23 net profit to the exceptional cash gain of RM1bil on the divestment of its highway concessions in Malaysia, noting that if the gain was excluded, its core post-tax earnings still grew 7% y-o-y to a record-breaking RM860mil for the year in review, due to higher overseas construction earnings.

Compared to the preceding quarter, 4Q23 net earnings rose by 12.7% against the RM223.4mil chalked up for the three months ended April 30, as revenue increased by 65% quarter-on-quarter from RM2.1bil.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday, Gamuda noted its construction order book touched an all-time-high of RM21bil while property sales rose to a record RM4.1bil.

“Property revenue reached an all-time-high RM2.8bil from FY22’s RM2.7bil while property earnings rose to a record RM315mil from last year’s RM310mil,” it said.

Gamuda declared a total dividend of 50 sen per ordinary share comprising normal dividend of 12 sen and special dividend of 38 sen were declared for FY23, which was a 76% y-o-y increase compared to the total interim dividend of 12 sen per ordinary share that was declared in FY22.

Moving forward, the group said its resilience is underpinned by its construction order book, including a RM4.4 bil order book boost from the acquisition of Downer Transport Projects in Australia and unbilled property sales of RM6.7bil.

“The group has a healthy balance sheet with a comfortable net gearing of 25%, well below its self-imposed gearing limit of 70%,” it added.