Raimon Land upbeat on townhouse project

Buoyed by a strong first-half financial performance, SET-listed Raimon Land Plc (RML) plans to resume development of at least one new project this year.

"The firm has already signed a deal to buy land for a townhouse project, but more details regarding value, size and location will be disclosed sometime later in the year," said chief executive Johnson Tan.

"Nonetheless, we'll still focus on luxury property development."

In May, Raimon Land said it was hesitant about launching a new project in Bangkok this year due to the ongoing political havoc in the capital.

The firm operates 12 development projects including five ongoing ones in Bangkok and Pattaya.

The five ongoing projects are The River, 185 Rajadamri and The Loft Ekkamai in Bangkok; and The Zire Wongamat and Unixx South Pattaya in Pattaya.

Construction of The River and 185 Rajadamri is now complete, and they are ready to be transferred to buyers, while The Zire Wongamat's construction is 99.8% complete.

Unixx South Pattaya is slated to be finished by next year's fourth quarter, while The Loft Ekkamai is scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2016.

Raimon Land developed a 25-unit townhouse project named The Loft Sathorn worth 400 million baht in 2003.

Mr Tan said Raimon Land owned land upcountry including 40 rai in Khao Yai, but further developments had yet to be planned.

Raimon Land achieved second-quarter revenue of 3.6 billion baht, up by 12.3% year-on-year, for a net profit of 796 million, up by 115% and marking its ninth consecutive quarterly profit.

Vice-president Sataporn Amornvorapak said this year's robust revenue and profit have been mostly from transfers of The River and 185 Rajadamri, which offered higher gross profit margin than other projects.

The five ongoing projects are expected to generate a gross profit margin of 30% on average, he said. 

The 185 Rajadamri project is 86% sold with more than 40% of the units transferred as of June 30, while The River is 93% sold with 98% of units transferred. 

Raimon Land reduced its financial costs by 43.3% and announced retained losses had been completely eliminated.

Mr Sataporn expects the company could decrease its debt-to-equity ratio from 1.4 times to one time this year.

Raimon Land has 18.6 billion baht worth of unrecognised sales, of which 11.5 billion are backlog that is expected to be booked by 2017.

RML shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 2.08 baht, down two satang, in trade worth 81.9 million baht.