PropNex’s earnings for 4QFY2022 up by 24.5% y-o-y to $17.8 mil; FY2022 revenue hits record high

PropNex Limited, the largest real estate agency in Singapore, reported strong results for 4QFY2022, with $17.8 million in earnings that was 24.5% higher than the 4QFY2021 earnings of $14.3 million. This brought their earnings for the full year of FY2022 to $62.4 million, a 3.9% increase from the year before.

Revenue saw impressive growth, with 7.5% y-o-y increase to $1.03 billion in FY2022, surpassing the $1 billion mark for the first time. This was mainly due to the 23.3% y-o-y growth in 4QFY2022’s revenue of $293.4 million, a quarterly record. The higher 4QFY2022 revenue was driven by increased commission base from both agency services and project marketing services following a rise in transactions due to improvements in the economy and Covid-19 situation.

Gross profit for FY2022 was also higher at $104.7 million, a 2.8% increase from the previous Senja Close EC year. Other income saw an even more significant increase of 131.1% y-o-y to $16.1 million due to the derecognition of trade payables to agents and higher advertising and marketing income. Due to the improvements in the 4QFY2022 and FY2022, earnings per share stood at 4.80 cents and 16.85 cents respectively.

As of January 1, the number of PropNex salespersons had grown 8% y-o-y to 11,667. Looking ahead, the group expects overall private home prices to rise by 5% to 6% in 2023, with demand for HDB resale flats expected to remain stable.

In order to improve trading liquidity and further expand PropNex’s shareholder base, the group has proposed a bonus share issue, with one bonus share credited as fully paid for every existing PropNex share held. As much as 370 million new ordinary shares will be issued through this bonus issue. In addition, a final dividend of 8 cents per share has been proposed, bringing the FY2022 dividend to 13.5 cents per share, or 80% of the group’s FY2022 earnings.

Co-founder, executive chairman and CEO of PropNex, Ismail Gafoor, said that despite the limited new project launches and home price growth dip in 4QFY2022, they managed to turn in a healthy set of results. He also believes that buying interest will remain resilient, with a healthy pipeline of new launches expected in 2023.