LONDON (Alliance News) - Asian Growth Properties Ltd on Friday said its pretax profit rose in the first half of 2016 thanks to gains made on the disposal of its subsidiaries.
The Hong Kong-based China property development and investment company posted pretax profit of HKD491.2 million for the six months ended June 30, up from HKD300.4 million the prior year, despite revenue falling to HKD294.6 million from HKD308.6 million. Fair value changes on investment properties also resulted in a negative HKD16.8 million movement, compared to the HKD238.0 million gain reported a year earlier.
However Asian Growth benefited from the realised gain of HKD611.5 million made through the sale of its subsidiary SEA (BVI) Ltd which owned the Dah Sing financial centre. This offset the HKS90.5 million realised loss in relation to the sale of its New Insight Holdings Ltd subsidiary which owned the Kaifeng Nova City project.
Asian Growth said global economic growth was likely to remain modest in the near term, with risks still towards the downside. Recoveries in Japan and the Eurozone are still fragile, and geopolitical tensions and uncertainty surrounding the Brexit vote have posed additional challenges, the company said.
"While the economic performance of the US is relatively better, there remains notable policy risks associated with its interest rate normalization and increasing policy divergence among major central banks, which could add financial volatility and pose a threat to the global economy," Asian Growth said.
However "China's economic growth held steady in the most recent quarter, with a sign that the slowdown in China's economy is stabilising," the company added, though "the domestic and external conditions are still complicated and severe and the downward economic pressure remains".
Shares in Asian Growth were untraded on Friday, having last traded at 45.00 pence.
By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland
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