F&N

Fraser & Neave (F&N) said on Tuesday that earnings doubled in its second quarter, lifted by stronger sales from its dairy businesses, which include Vinamilk.

Profit attributable to shareholders for the quarter ended March 31 doubled to $35.9 million, from $15 million the year before. F&N said this was mainly due to higher contributions from dairies operations, particularly from Vinamilk, its associated company in Vietnam.

Revenue rose 3.4 per cent to $467.4 million, driven by stronger dairy and soft drink sales. However, printing and publishing revenue declined 8.6 per cent due to lower printing volumes faced by the group's printing plants in Singapore and Malaysia.

For the first half of financial year 2019, revenue grew 1.9 per cent to $931.8 million, while net profit rose 81 per cent to $73.8 million.

F&N declared an interim dividend of 1.5 cents per share, unchanged from a year ago. This will be paid on June 10.

CapitaLand

CapitaLand's net profit for its first quarter sank 7.4 per cent to $295.6 million from the previous year, the group said in a Singapore Exchange filing on Tuesday evening.

This was because of lower operating profit after tax and minority interest from lower trading income from residential projects in Singapore and China, as well as lower writeback of impairments, partially offset by gains from assets recycling and revaluation of a property in China.

For the three months ended March 31, revenue fell 23.8 per cent to $1.05 billion from the preceding year. The company said this was caused mainly by lower revenue contributions from residential projects, as there were fewer units handed over compared with the year-ago quarter. However, this was cushioned by recurring rental income from new acquisitions, including CapitaLand's portfolio of multifamily properties in the US and a commercial property in Europe acquired last year.

Earnings per share based on weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue fell to 7.1 cents from 7.5 cents in the year-ago period. Net asset value per share rose to 4.66 cents as of March 31, from 4.55 cents three months ago.