REAL estate agency PropNex has expanded to Cambodia, its fourth overseas market. It has also collaborated with developers for two projects in the market.

 

The expansion brings PropNex' s salesforce to over 12,000 across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia.

 

The master franchise of PropNex Cambodia will be led by Alan Neo, who will take on the role of chief executive. He has 15 years of experience in the business and will oversee PropNex Cambodia, which has 500 salespersons, with headquarters in Phnom Penh and branch offices in Siem Reap and Sihanoukville.

 

PropNex Cambodia has also collaborated with Hong Kong developer Urban Hub (Cambodia) Co for Urban Village - a mixed-use development spanning 760,000 square metres situated in Phnom Penh along Hun Sen Blvd.

 

Urban Village is adjacent to Factory Phnom Penh, which houses a kindergarten, a library, an art gallery, co-working space, retail stores, entertainment facilities, a trampoline park, a skateboard park and a German craft beer brewery.

 

PropNex Cambodia is also the exclusive marketing agency of D' Seaview - a mixed-use development project in Sihanoukville (Cambodia) developed by Singapore-listed Hong Lai Huat Group.

 

PropNex&rsquo s core business is providing real estate agency services for public and private residential and commercial/industrial properties, and project marketing services for new private residential development projects.

 

- In 1QFY21, revenue increased 63.3% yoy to S$220.6 million, and profit almost doubled, surging 95.7% to S$14.8m. Q1 revenue alone made up 42.8% of FY2020&rsquo s revenue.

 

- The property price run-up is likely to continue, with higher developer costs that will translate to higher property prices, and the low inventory in the market.

 

- We expect sales volume to continue growing in 2021. However, we remain cautious with possible property cooling measures that may come. Our target price of S$1.27 implies a 7.6% upside to the last traded price.

 

REAL estate agency PropNex on Tuesday posted a first-quarter net profit of S$14.8 million, nearly double the S$7.6 million the year before.

 

This came amid higher revenue due to an increase in commission income from agency services and project marketing services.

 

The results translate to earnings per share (EPS) of 4.01 Singapore cents for the three months ended March 31, against an EPS of 2.05 cents the year prior.

 

Revenue was up 63.3 per cent on the year to S$220.6 million, from S$135.1 million. The group earned S$47.5 million in commission income from agency services and S$38 million from project marketing services.

 

This was a result of a higher number of transactions completed in the first quarter following improvements in both the Covid-19 situation and the economy.

 

PropNex said the growth in both its top and bottom line is also attributable to improved market sentiments. There was a " strong take-up" of new project launches, it added.

 

No dividend has been declared for the period, unchanged from a year ago, due to the company' s policy of distributing dividends on a semi-annual basis.