A year of mixed results for property firms

IT WAS a year in which property prices soared and the earnings of property companies surged with them.

But the government's move on Oct 26 to discourage speculative buying by withdrawing the deferred payment scheme for private property purchases led to a steep fall in the share prices of Singapore developers in November and December, wiping out most of their gains earlier in 2007.

Most have not recovered, which means any gains in their market value over the year were lacklustre compared with advances of more than 80 per cent for the largest Singapore developers in 2006.

Among the bigger developers, GuocoLand saw its market value grow the fastest in 2007 - both in dollar and percentage terms.

Its market capitalisation rose from $1.72 billion at the end of 2006 to $5.01 billion at the end of trading yesterday - an increase of almost three times.

By contrast, CapitaLand, the largest developer here, ended the year with a market cap of $17.6 billion, just 2.1 per cent higher than at the end of 2006.

City Developments, the second-largest developer here, saw its market cap rise 11.8 per cent during the year to $12.9 billion.

Keppel Land's market cap rose just 5.6 per cent to $5.24 billion, while UOL Group's market cap rose 4.3 per cent to $3.6 billion. Singapore Land saw its market cap shrink 7 per cent to $3.3 billion.

Some of the smaller developers did turn in big gains. SC Global Developments, for example, saw its market cap rise from $372 million to $956 million during the year.

Overseas developers listed here also saw larger gains. Hongkong Land, a commercial developer in Hong Kong, saw its market cap grow 17.2 per cent to $16.4 billion.

And Yanlord Land, a mainland Chinese developer listed here, saw its market cap rise 47.1 per cent to $6.01 billion.