PBT rises 33.4% or RM165.2m, fuelled by higher revenues from airport operations, lower losses from Turkey
by FARA AISYAH / pic by TMR FILE PIX
MALAYSIA Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB) net profit for the final three months of 2019 rose 5%, boosted by stronger revenue from its Malaysian operations.
Earnings for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2019 (4Q19), rose to RM29.51 million from RM28.1 million recorded in the same period in 2018.
MAHB said the profit before tax (PBT) of the Malaysian operations rose by 38.3% to RM86 million, but the company’s Turkey operations posted a loss before tax (LBT) of RM40.4 million. MAHB’s Qatar operations posted a lower PBT of RM500,000.
The airport operator’s earnings per share in the three months increased to 0.91 sen from 0.82 sen in 4Q18. Revenues during the quarter rose 7.2% year-on-year (YoY) to RM1.34 billion from RM1.25 billion in 4Q18.
However, MAHB’s net profit for the full year fell 26.16% to RM537.04 million from RM727.3 million due to the absence of one-off gains from the fair valuation of investment in GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd amounting to RM258.4 million and investment disposal gain in GMR Male’ International Airport Pte Ltd totalling RM28.2 million.
Excluding the one-off gains, the company said PBT increased by 33.4% or RM165.2 million compared to 2018, fuelled by higher revenues from airport operations and lower losses from Turkey operations.
MAHB’s annual revenue rose by 7.42% YoY to RM5.21 billion from RM4.85 billion, helped by the growth in passenger and aircraft movements.
For the 12-month period, the group’s aeronautical revenue segment grew by 15% to RM2.76 billion on a strong passenger growth.
Malaysia’s operations registered a 6.2% passenger growth (international: +3.1%; domestic: +9.5%), totalling 105.2 million passengers compared to 99.1 million passengers recorded in 2018.
The passenger traffic for Turkey operations rose by 3.8% (international: +19.7%; domestic: -4.5%) to 35.4 million passengers compared to 2018.
The non-aeronautical revenue upped by 3.4% to RM2.16 billion, driven by the retail concessionaires from the company’s operation in Turkey, higher retail revenue and land lease revenue from Malaysian operations.
Non-airport operations revenue declined by 1.5% to RM286.9 million due to lower revenue from agriculture and horticulture, project and repair maintenance, and hotel businesses compared to the prior year.
Overall, Malaysian and Turkey operations recorded revenue growth of 6.4% to RM3.77 billion and 11.9% to RM1.29 billion respectively.
Qatar operations recorded a slight decrease in revenue of 1.5% to RM146.8 million compared to 2018.
MAHB said in the interim, the coronavirus outbreak is expected to have an adverse impact on passenger traffic growth.
“Recovery is expected to be gradual with the return of confidence to travel and the containment of Covid-19.
“We foresee passenger traffic will recover the lost ground in the medium to long term as there is latent demand for travel based on average high load factors, especially in December 2019,” it noted.
In addition, MAHB said the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign may to a certain extent cushion the adverse impact from Covid-19.
Meanwhile, the Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport is anticipated to further consolidate its international traffic, while some moderation in the decline of the domestic passengers is expected.
Airlines in the overseas operations are projected to continue raising their load factor growth in 2020, with the airport still currently able to accommodate such growth with its existing runway and terminal capacity.
The board has proposed a single-tier final dividend of 10 sen, subject to the shareholders’ approval at the forthcoming AGM.
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