KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 24): Sunway Construction Group Bhd (SunCon) achieved a 17.6% increase in net profit for the second quarter ended June 30, 2017 (2QFY17) to RM36.76 million or 2.84 sen per share, from RM31.27 million or 2.42 sen a year ago on better margins.

Its quarterly revenue, however, was down 3.03% to RM417.23 million from RM430.29 million a year ago, said SunCon in a filing with Bursa Malaysia today.

The group has declared a first single tier interim dividend of three sen per share in respect of the financial year ending Dec 31, 2017, said SunCon. The entitlement and payment date will be determined and announced later.

SunCon said the construction segment’s revenue went up 7.4% to RM387.2 million from RM360.5 million due to higher progress work from external building projects.

“Construction's profit margin improved from 5.9% to 9.4% generally due to better margins from our existing on-going projects,” said SunCon.

For the cumulative six months of FY17, its net profit grew 18.4% to RM71.42 million or 5.52 sen a share compared with RM60.32 million or 4.67 sen a share a year ago. Its revenue was 2.09% lower at RM836.76 million from RM854.64 million last year.

SunCon said the group's outstanding orderbook amounts to RM4.3 billion with RM1 billion new orderbook as at end-June 2017.

The tender book value is now more than RM14 billion with the majority of jobs tendered under the civil/infrastructure division, the group added.

Looking forward, underpinned by its healthy outstanding orderbook, relatively smooth progress of its current projects and despite the anticipated slowdown in precast, barring unforeseen circumstances, SunCon said it expects to perform satisfactorily in this year.

In addition, SunCon said it is presently in discussion with its parent company for several potential projects.

“The expansion of our Iskandar Plant from five lines to nine lines has been completed,” said SunCon, adding that the overall plant capacity for both their Senai and Iskandar Plant has now increased to 156,600m3 per annum from 128,000m3 per annum.

Shares in SunCon closed unchanged at RM2.32 today for a market capitalisation of RM3 billion. Over the past 12 months, the stock has risen about 45.7% from RM1.59.