Companies

Beijing Dalong Estate reports soaring net profit in 2009

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-06-08 16:52

BEIJING: Beijing Dalong Weiye Real Estate, a Shanghai-listed company, said its 2009 net profit soared by 14,256 percent year-on-year to reach 338.9 million yuan ($49.6 million).

In a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange Tuesday, the company said its business revenue in 2009 hit 1.75 billion yuan, up 1,174 percent from the previous year.

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Earnings per share were 0.82 yuan, but no dividend would be paid as the company reported accumulated losses standing at 46.9 million yuan by the end of 2009, said the statement.

Undistributed profit would be used in project construction, it said.

As of the end of 2009, the company's total assets topped 3 billion yuan, the statement said.

The company attributed the dramatic profit increase to the booming property market in China last year as investment in property development surged and sales increased with soaring housing prices in major cities, according to the statement.

The financial crisis in 2008 dampened confidence in consumption and investment, the company said.

Dalong Estate won a bid for a parcel of residential land in Shunyi for 5.05 billion yuan on November 20, 2009.

If developed, the floor price of the project could have amounted to almost 29,900 yuan per square meter, one of the highest unit prices for a residential site on the Chinese mainland.

But the company was later found unable to pay on time at auction and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Land and Resources revoked its right to buy the plot in February.

The authority also retained the company's 200 million yuan bid deposit, according to a statement by the bureau in February.

A report on March 16 by the country's state-owned China Central Television said the company also failed to disclose information on the bid in a timely way to the market, and investors demanded compensation for their stock losses and filed complaints against the company with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) for irregular information disclosure.

A statement from the company said April 15 it had received an investigation notice from the CSRC concerning the company's violations of securities laws and regulations.

The company made a short statement in its 2009 annual business report concerning the land bid in Shunyi, saying the company had not signed the land-purchase contract as of the release of the report.

Shares of the company opened lower Tuesday at 9.91 yuan, compared to 10.03 yuan at closing Monday. As of 11:30 am, shares closed 0.2 percent down to 10.01 yuan at end of morning trading.