KERJAYA PROSPEK CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC FOR FY21, TO TWEAK BUSINESS STRATEGIES

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25 -- Kerjaya Prospek Group Bhd (KPGB) is cautiously optimistic, will continue to examine the market situation and tweak its business strategies accordingly to meet the challenges ahead and safeguard its financial performance.

Executive chairman Datuk Tee Eng Ho said despite the expectation of 2021 to be a recovery year, the global and domestic markets would continue to be subjected to a high degree of uncertainties as the effectiveness of vaccines is yet to be proven.

"We were better prepared when the government announced the second Movement Control Order (MCO 2.0) early this year, and we managed to get the Ministry of International Trade and Industry’s approval overnight for all our sites to continue operating.

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"Hence, this helped us in minimising the impact on our operations," he told reporters during the group’s fourth quarter of financial year 2020 (4Q20) virtual briefing here today.

He said while the construction sector will remain as the main contributor to the group’s earning, with the gradual recovery of the property sector underpinned by the economic recovery and low interest rate environment, KPGB has decided to launch two new property development projects namely Yakin Land Development and Monterez Development in the second half of 2021.

"Although 2020 was a very challenging year, we are delighted to be able to continue to deliver sustainable earning and value to our shareholders, backed by our experienced management team who manage to continue to deliver our projects on a timely basis while keeping the escalating cost to a minimum.

"We managed to achieve a commendable order book replenishment of RM1.5 billion in FY20, which brings the total outstanding order book to RM3.5 billion as at Dec 31, 2020," he said, adding that 99.6 per cent of group's revenue in FY20 came from the construction division.

Earlier, in a filing with Bursa Malaysia, KPGB's net profit eased to RM27.82 million in the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2020, from RM36.27 million in the same quarter last year, while revenue decreased to RM248.85 million from RM268.41 million previously.

Meanwhile, for the full financial year 2020 (FY20), KPGB's net profit eased to RM90.59 million from RM140.18 million posted a year ago, with revenue also declining to RM810.99 million from RM1.05 billion previously.

The decline in revenue was due to lower revenue registered in the construction, manufacturing and property development segments, as a result of the MCO as well as two project sites being halted for two weeks due to COVID-19 infection among the workers.

-- BERNAMA