1H 2024 Financial Results Briefing

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, friends from the media, analysts, bankers, investors and CDL colleagues. My name is Belinda and I'm the head of investor relations and corporate communications at CDL. On behalf of the management, a very warm welcome to CDL's briefing on its unaudited first half 2024 financial results. Thank you for joining us this morning. We have quite a big group this morning right here at the M Hotel Singapore, as well as we have a large group that is joining us on live webcast this morning. Now, for today's briefing, in line with CDL's commitment to environmental sustainability, we encourage you to scan the QR code that will be screened up here and to download the following documents that were already uploaded on DSGX website this morning. They include a copy of the detailed financial statement, a press release summarizing the

key highlights of our performance, a presentation deck that the group will be going through very shortly, and for our guests that are joining us live on webcast, you would similarly be able to download these documents on our website on the tab in front of you. I would like to introduce you to the CDR Management Panel in the centre. We have Mr. Quack Ling-Bing, our executive chairman, followed by our ex-co-members, Mr. Sherman Quack, our group CEO, Mr. Quack Aixing, our group chief operating officer, Mr. Chiang Yang-Hong, our group general manager, and Ms. Yong-Yin Ming, our group financial officer, chief financial officer. The format of today's briefing will be in two parts. We will kick off with a presentation of some of the key highlights and then followed by a Q&A opportunity. Now without further ado, I would like to invite Mr. Sherman Quack, CDL Group CEO, to kick start the presentations. Mr. Quack, please. You know what, maybe I might have to use this because I have to stand near the mic for the

computers all the way there. Anyway, thank you. Today, all of you quite formal give me some applause as I come up to the stage as well, though as I'll take you through, we have faced quite a lot of sector headwinds, so I know we didn't exactly release the prettiest set of results, but we have a lot of stuff in the works and we intend I think to further accelerate things as we move forward. So as you can see in the first half of 2024 I mean our revenues down primarily because the same period last year, corresponding period last Last year we had this Piermon Grand, our EC project in Pongong that TOPed in January last year. And as you all know, when EC projects TOP, that's when you recognize the full revenue and profit. And that made it quite hard for us to compare because there was 1 billion of revenue that came in just from Piermon Grand last year. But the truth of the matter is that our profitability has been quite severely impacted

I think by the higher financing costs. So as long as this interest rate environment remains high, it certainly put a lot of pressure on our business. I mean, as you all would have noticed, over the last couple of years, we've been investing quite heavily in recurring income assets on the multifamily side, on the student accommodation side. And many of them are doing very well, but in this high interest rate environment, it's actually quite difficult, I think, to even cover the financing costs. But having said that, I mean, I think we are generally of the view that hopefully next month we will see the first signs of easing as the interest rates hopefully start to taper down and that should lift a lot of pressure of our business. The other thing that impacted us was we had certain projects, not all, but certain projects that are also delayed on the construction side. So in terms of sales value, I mean, over the last few years, we've actually done well, I would say.