KUCHING: Harbour-Link Group Bhd’s bottomline has been boosted as it handled more cargo.
The Bintulu-based company posted a nine percent increase in group revenue to RM335.9 million for financial year ended Dec 31, 2018 (FY2018) from RM306.9 million in FY2017.
Group net profit increased marginally to RM20.2 million from RM19.3 million year-on-year.
Harbour-Link’s shipping and marine segment contributed RM224.1 million to group revenue in FY2018 or six percent increase over RM210.3 million in FY2017.
The company attributed the improvement performance to higher volume of cargo handled due to operations in Hong Kong and China.
However, the segment’s pre-tax profit fell by RM2 million to RM12.7 million from RM14.7 million year-on-year due to higher maintenance cost for two container vessels.
The integrated logistics segment registered strong performance, with its revenue jumped by 30% to RM84.5 million from RM65.2 million in FY2017 while pre-tax profit rose by 15 percent to RM16.5 million from RM14.4 million during the same period of review.
“The higher revenue achieved is mainly due from higher volume of cargoes handled as a result from newly projects secured,” Harbour-Link said in notes to its latest financials.
The engineering segment also did well, recording a 25 percent increase in revenue to RM26.9 million from RM21.4 million in FY2017.But the segment’s pre-tax profit was lower by 57 percent at RM241,000 during the same period due to lower profit margin for the current projects in hand.
Harbour-Link is also into property development which saw little activities in FY2018 as shown by revenue of merely RM320,000 as compared to RM10 million in FY2017.
But the segment registered higher pre-tax profit of RM1.73 million as compared to RM320,000 in FY2017 due to the sale of a warehouse in Kemena land district.
The company’s investment holding segment posted pre-tax loss of RM1.5 million, which was higher than RM1.35 million loss in FY2017.
On prospects, Harbour-Link said the stabilisation of oil price at around US$55 and US$60 per barrel might bring relief to the company for the time being.
“But uncertainty of the volatile oil price is always there. It may impact our profit and loss.”
The company said as the new Malaysia government’s policies and systems are gradually stabilising, this would bring in more foreign investments and help the country’s economic development.
“Our group is cognizant of the industry that we are participating and should maintain the group’s market share and strengthening our core competencies and step up efforts in corporate strategies of clientele development and service innovation as a differentiation factor in the competitive operating environment.
“Going forward, the group will continue seeking new business opportunities, focus on operational efficiency and cost control effectiveness to better contend with competition.
“We shall expect to deliver a favourable growth for financial year ended 2019,” it added.
