The Borneo Post

Berjaya Land Bhd (B-Land) announced that its pre-tax profit in the third quarter ended Jan 31, 2009 fell to RM78.898 million from RM122.305 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year.

Its revenue rose to RM1.158 billion from RM181.177 million.

The increase in revenue was mainly due to the consolidation of Berjaya Sports Toto Bhd (BToto) as a subsidiary company effective February 2008, B-Land said in a statement.

The lower pre-tax profit in the current quarter was mainly due to lower progress billings from the property development division and lower rental income from the property investment division, it added.

This was the result of the disposal of the KL Plaza properties in the previous financial year, higher finance costs, foreign exchange losses and impairment in value of certain quoted investments arising from the stock market downturn following the global financial turmoil, it added.

In addition, the group recorded an exceptional gain of RM97.6 million from the disposal of the KL Plaza properties in the previous year’s corresponding quarter, it said.

For the nine-month period ended Jnauary 31, 2009, the group announced that pre-tax profit fell to RM211.648 million from RM484.769 million in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Its revenue rose to RM3.179 billion from RM506.864 million.

The increase in revenue was mainly due to the consolidation of BToto and higher revenue from the hotels and resorts division, it said.

The lower pre-tax profit was also due to the same reasons mentioned above and also substantial exceptional gains, mainly from the placement of 170 million B-Land 5 per cent Irredeemable Convertible Unsecured Loan Stocks (ICULS) 1999/2009 and the disposal of hotels and the KL Plaza properties in the previous year.

B-Land said in view of the prevailing global economic conditions and its adverse impact on the Malaysian economy, the group expects that the operating performance of its hotels and resorts business, as well as the property development business in the remaining quarter of the financial year ending April 30, 2009, may be affected.

However, the Numbers Forecast Operators (NFO) business under BToto is expected to remain resilient, it said.