Hang Lung has no timetable for sale of 1,400-flat stockpile
Property firm says sitting on 1,400 homes for 10 years costs less than 1pc of development costs as it records rise in underlying profit of 98pc
Hang Lung Properties, which has held on to 1,400 completed flats for 10 years, said yesterday the annual holding cost for stockpiles of unsold units was less than 1 per cent of their development cost.
The developer said it had no concrete timetable for disposing of all of the unsold flats.
Last year, Hang Lung sold just 117 units - nine at the Harbourside in West Kowloon and 108 at the Long Beach in Tai Kok Tsui - at average prices of HK$32,100 and HK$10,600 per square foot, respectively.
Thanks to the high selling prices and the disposal of non-core investment properties worth HK$2.14 billion, the developer reported underlying profit rose 98 per cent for the year.
Excluding a revaluation gain on investment properties, core earnings at Hang Lung, which is the first listed developer to announce its results for last year, were HK$6.18 billion, almost double the HK$3.12 billion recorded a year earlier. Turnover jumped 29 per cent to HK$7.37 billion. Operating profit from property leasing grew 11 per cent to HK$4.89 billion, while property sales soared to HK$846 million from HK$150 million.
Hang Lung declared a final dividend of 57 HK cents per share, up 58 per cent.