KUALA LUMPUR (June 22): Gamuda Bhd’s net profit for the third quarter ended April 30, 2023 (3QFY2023) edged up 0.85% to RM223.36 million from RM221.49 million a year ago, on the back of stronger overseas construction earnings.

Quarterly revenue climbed 81.22% to RM2.07 billion from RM1.14 billion last year, with overseas revenue tripling. Earnings per share came in at 8.40 sen in 3QFY2023 against 8.72 sen in 3QFY2022, its bourse filing showed.

The property development declared a second interim dividend of six sen per share for the financial year ending July 31, 2023, with the entitlement date to be announced later.

This brings its total dividend declared for FY2023 to 50 sen — as opposed to 12 sen in the corresponding period in FY2022 — including the special dividend of 38 sen per share it announced last November after the engineering, property and infrastructure company successfully completed the divestment of four of its highways to Amanat Lebuhraya Rakyat Bhd (ALR).

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, Gamuda’s latest quarterly net profit rose 14.77% from RM194.62 million in 2QFY2023, as revenue grew 43.24% from RM1.44 billion — mainly due to stronger property earnings.

For the nine months ended April 30, the group’s net profit jumped to an all-time high of RM1.59 billion — almost triple the RM550.98 million it made in the corresponding period a year earlier — boosted by a one-off cash gain of RM1 billion from the divestment of its toll highway operations in October 2022.

"Excluding this one-off gain, the core earnings rose 10% to RM608 million compared with last year’s earnings of RM551 million as stronger overseas construction earnings replaced highway earnings following the divestment," Gamuda said.

Cumulative revenue jumped 58% to RM4.82 billion from RM3.05 billion as the group’s overseas revenue, primarily overseas construction revenue, rose sharply to RM2.1 billion from RM333 million, as projects in Australia and Taiwan gathered pace.

Gamuda is expecting its performance this year to be driven by overseas construction activities as projects in Australia and Taiwan continue to pick up the pace and property sales following the divestment of toll highway operations in 1QFY2023.

“Moving forward, the resilience of the group is underpinned by a large construction order book of RM20 billion (including AUD2 billion orderbook boost from the acquisition of Downer Transport Projects in Australia) and unbilled property sales of RM5.7 billion

"On top of that, Gamuda has a healthy balance sheet with almost zero net gearing," the group added.

Gamuda shares closed three sen or 0.71% higher at RM4.25 on Thursday (June 22), giving the group a market capitalisation of RM11.31 billion.

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