Hong Kong-listed Suncity Group Holdings – formerly known as Sun Century Group Ltd – posted a profit attributable to the owners of the company of RMB197 million (US$31.4 million) in 2017, improved from a loss of RMB702 million in 2016. The result came despite a 50.9% decline in revenue for the year to RMB544.7 million (US$86.8 million) – down from RMB1.09 billion – due primarily to lower contributions from property sales and rental income. Gross profit also declined 66.5% to RMB182.1 million.
The improved profit attributable to owners of the company was a result of a range of factors including a reversal of impairment losses on assets and the December 2016 issuance of convertible bonds worth RMB505.1 million to major shareholder Fame Select Ltd.
Suncity Group Holdings, chaired by the CEO of Macau junket investor Suncity Group, Alvin Chau, lists its primary services as property development, property leasing, travel agency services and hotel and integrated resort management and consultancy.
The company said that provision of hotel and integrated resort management and consultancy services “is a new business of the group and has generated revenue of approximately RMB2.5 million for the year,” primarily from pre-opening services supplied to certain IRs.
However, Suncity Group Holdings is set to complete its acquisition of Goal Summit Ltd, a related company wholly-owned by Chau and which holds a 34% stake in Vietnam integrated resort Hoiana, by 31 May 2018. Hoiana is due to open in 2019.
A subsidiary of Suncity Group Holdings, Suncity Group Management and Consultancy (Hoi An) Limited, has also entered into a Technical Services Agreement with Hoi An South Development Ltd that will see it provide technical and pre-opening services in relation to the casino and the food and beverages outlets to be established at Hoiana.
Suncity Group Holdings said that income from its hotel and integrated resort management and consultancy services arm comprised just 0.47% of total income in 2017, but is expected to rise significantly in the coming years. 65.01% of income was derived from travel agency services, 24.33% from property development and 10.19% from property leasing.
It added that the 2016 acquisition of Sun Travel Ltd had seen the sale of hotel accommodation products and ferry tickets increase significantly with the number of guests using travel agents to book trips to Macau increasing from 5.4 million in 2016 to approximately 5.8 million in 2017, according to figures supplied by the Macau government.
“With the continual growth in number of visitors to Macau and more specifically, the increase in overnight visitors, it is anticipated that revenue from the travel agent business will continue to grow in the future,” the company said.
