On August 22, Country Garden disclosed its financial results for the first half of 2019 in Hong Kong. This is Country Garden’s first results report since the Chinese property developer climbed to 177th place in the Fortune Global 500 list last month. During the last six months, the company continued to lead the industry in terms of sales, with revenue, gross profit, net profit and other indicators having increased significantly when compared with the same period last year, while net debt ratio remains comfortably well below the norm for the industry. All these indicators demonstrate that the leading property developer continues to maintain steady growth during the period.
As of June 30, 2019, Country Garden recorded contracted sales of 281.95 billion yuan (approx. US$39.8 billion), an increase of 47.6% from the second half of 2018. Contracted gross floor area reached 31.29 million square meters, continuing to take the lead across the industry.
During the reporting period, Country Garden achieved revenue of 202.01 billion yuan (approx. US$28.5 billion), up 53.2% year on year. Gross profit totaled 54.86 billion yuan (approx. US$7.7 billion), up 56.9% year on year, with settlement gross profit margin standing at 27.2%, an increase of 0.7 percentage points over the same period last year. Net profit came in at 23.06 billion yuan (approx. US$3.3 billion) for the half year, an increase of 41.3% year on year. In addition, the net profit as well as net profit from primary market activities attributable to shareholders reached 15.64 billion yuan (approx. US$2.2 billion) and 15.98 billion yuan (approx. US$2.3 billion) respectively, up 20.8% and 23.4%. On the same day, the company’s board of directors declared an interim dividend of 0.2287 yuan (approx. US$03.2) per share, an increase of 23.5% from a year earlier.
During the period, Country Garden’s financial leverage remained at one of the lowest levels among peers within the industry, with a net lending ratio of 58.5%, lower than the redline of 70% for 12th year in a row. Country Garden has become one of the few developers in the industry that achieved both scale growth and debt control. Despite a systematic control over capital, the company at all times remained cash flow positive. As of the end of June 2019, the company had a cash balance of 222.84 billion yuan (approx. US$31.5 billion), accounting for 12.8% of total assets. In addition, the developer has a bank credit line of about 313.3 billion yuan (approx. US$44.2 billion) in reserve. The abundance of operating capital and a good credit status continue to support the steady development of the group.
On June 17 this year, Country Garden was selected as one of the constituents of Hang Seng China Enterprise Index in Hong Kong. The firm is already included in Hang Seng China 25 Index, Hang Seng Composite Index and Hang Seng Mainland 100, demonstrating that the firm’s growth in corporate size, strong profitability and promising growth potential have been recognized by institutional investors. Country Garden is rated ‘BBB-‘ by Fitch, ‘BB+’ by S&P and ‘Ba1’ by Moody’s (stable outlook), all of which serves as strong evidence that the three international authoritative credit rating agencies have confidence in the company’s future.
