I am pleased to report that the Group’s consolidated profit attributable to shareholders was HK$529.9 million for the fiscal year ended 31 March 2019, and earnings per share was HK5.28 cents.
This fiscal period has been full of challenges in the global macroeconomy. Investment sentiment has been dampened by the continuing US-China trade war disputes throughout the fiscal year. The volatility of the Renminbi, increase in corporate bankruptcies and the slowing down of domestic economy have dampened the investment sentiment in the China market. As a consolation, the recent rate outlook in the US has become more dovish with future Federal Reserve rate cuts likely to happen. This will help to relieve the pressure on the global economies and the real estate market. However, we do believe there will be continual volatilities and challenges in the global markets that will affect the global markets and investment sentiment.
Despite these challenging operating environments, the Group has strived to deliver decent profitability and strengthened the financial position through steady asset disposals on both our residential and commercial projects. As detailed in the later section, we have contracted sales and unrecognised contracted sales commitment up to 31 March 2019 totaling approximately HK$6.5 billion secured from project sales which are recorded in this and the next fiscal year. In addition, through prudent capital management and the replenishment of our landbank, the Group is ready to capture additional landbank opportunities in order to generate solid returns in the future.
In respect of our residential business, we are delighted to have successfully completed the sales of the kau to HIGHLAND, our Kau To Shan villa project. In total, twenty luxurious villas were sold at superior prices and reaffirms Couture Homes’ strong ability in selling luxury homes in Hong Kong. In addition, we will also be launching our premium deluxe residential project at the Jardine’s Lookout, namely Dukes Place, within this year and we are confident on setting a new milestone for our residential business.
With regard to commercial business, we have acquired quality commercial assets in both the traditional Central Business District (“CBD”) in Central and the new growing CBD2 in Kowloon East in order to assemble a strategic presence in both of these key office submarkets. For our prime commercial site at Gage Street/Graham Street in Central acquired last fiscal year, we have initiated the master planning process for the project which comprises of a 300,000 sq.ft. of Grade A office tower and a 100,000 sq.ft. super luxury hotel tower.
In Kowloon East, market demand for Grade A office space in this office sub-market has stayed strong as we have observed continued decentralisation and consolidation requirements within the Hong Kong office sector. By capitalising on the current strong demand, we have successfully presold over fifty percent of our joint ventured and new Grade A office tower project and we have achieved good profitability to date. In addition, we have added another Grade A office building through joint venture, namely OCTA Tower to further strengthen our portfolio in Kowloon East in order to further capitalise on future opportunities.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to my fellow Board members who bring valuable knowledge and insights to the Group, to all of our employees for the strong dedication and efforts during this challenging time, and to all of our business partners and stakeholders for their continuing support throughout the years.
