SINGAPORE (May 11): SUTL Enterprise, the marina developer and owner of ONE°15 Marina Club in Sentosa Cove, reported a 1% rise in 1Q earnings to $0.79 million from a year ago due to its focus on cost containment and improving operational efficiencies.
Revenue for the three months ended March 31 fell 6% to $6.45 million. Sales of goods and services fell 5% to $4.7 million while membership-related fees and management fees fell 9% to $1.6 million.
Arthur Tay, SUTL Chief Executive Officer, said: “The group experienced a marginal decline in revenue mainly due to the outsourcing of yacht maintenance and cleaning services... The economic slowdown also weighed on our yacht chartering business, which recorded lower demand from corporate customers.”
As at end March, group balance sheet remained robust with cash and cash equivalents of $42 million and zero borrowings.
Besides its marina at Sentosa Cove, SUTL Enterprise has a management contract with ONE°15 Marina Brooklyn in New York. It is also anticipating the opening of two marinas that are being constructed in Guishan, China and Jakarta, Indonesia, for which the group had already secured management contracts. Both are expected to be completed in the second half of 2018.
The group also has a conditional joint venture (JV) agreement with UEM Land to form a JV company to develop ONE°15 marinas in Puteri Harbour, Iskandar Malaysia, Johor. These marinas are expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2019.
Tay said: “We are optimistic about the prospects of the integrated marina industry as the market conditions for the development of such marinas remain fairly stable. Good quality marinas remain under-supplied in Asia and we are actively seeking opportunities to develop greenfield marinas or to acquire established marinas to transform and rebrand. We are also actively looking out for management contracts under our ONE°15 brand.”
Shares of SUTL closed 2 cents higher at 90 cents.