Huaku Development Co (華固建設) could see its revenue jump this year with profits from three luxury residential projects, senior company officials said yesterday.
The Taipei-based company gave the guidance on the sidelines of its annual shareholders’ conference that gave its go-ahead to plans to distribute NT$5 per share in cash dividends from earnings per share of NT$3.12 for last year.
The payout rate exceeds 100 percent, a practice that is not uncommon among Taiwanese developers and reflects the company’s positive earnings outlook for this year.
The three projects might generate NT$17.2 billion (US$456.31 million) in revenue upon their completion later this year, Huaku general manager Carson Hung (洪嘉昇) told reporters.
The company is about to complete the “Your Majesty” (華固名鑄) complex on Taipei’s Dunhua N Road and “Delight Gallery” (華固樂慕) on Bade Road, while the “Sweet Garden” (華固新代田) project in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城) is expected to be finished in the fourth quarter, Hung said.
Your Majesty, which features apartments of 100 ping (330m2) and 132 ping, is nearly 90 percent sold and might bring NT$8 billion in revenue, Hung said.
The Delight Gallery and the Sweet Garden might generate NT$5 billion and NT$4.2 billion respectively, he said.
“This year might prove a bountiful year for Huaku,” chairman Chung Long-chang (鍾榮昌) said.
Its sales rates are approaching 45 percent for presale and new housing projects, compared with 42 percent in Taipei and 38 percent in New Taipei City last year, he said.
The company last year refrained from launching new projects and relied on selling existing houses to drive revenue, Chung said.
That would explain why revenue for last year plunged 55.3 percent to NT$4.63 billion from 2017, as company data showed.
Huaku has created a strategy to develop boutique housing that might help it to cope with market changes and recover investment in faster, Chung said.
Three-bedroom apartments of 37 ping are the most popular in Taipei, he said.
Prices might pick up 3 to 5 percent for Huaku products in the Greater Taipei area due to healthy real demand and a lack of land supply, Chung said.
It plans to start construction on a joint venture on Taipei’s Chengde Road and roll out a presale project in the city’s Neihu District (內湖) in the fourth quarter.
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