Ananda Development PCL announces presales 356% above guidance and raises full year presales guidance by 11% to 25.6 billion Baht

Ananda Development PCL announces presales 356% above guidance and raises full year presales guidance by 11% to 25.6 billion Baht following successful launches in Q1 making it the largest seller of condominiums in Thailand.

Bangkok, 14th May 2015 - Ananda Development Public Company Limited announces that following successful launches of two new condominiums in the first quarter it was the largest seller of condominiums in the country as pre-sales were 356% higher than guidance. Based on the success in the first quarter the company raised its full year presales target by 11% to 25.6 billion Baht.

During the quarter the company launched two new condominiums close to mass transit stations, Ashton Residence 41 on Sukhumvit Soi 41, with a total project value of 1.8 billion Baht, that was sold out at launch and Ashton Chula-Silom, on Rama IV road, with a total project value of 8.7 Bn Baht, that achieved an 81% sales rate of 5.6 billion Baht of the 6.9 billion Baht of units released for sale.

Including sales from existing projects the company generated total presales for the quarter of 9.3 billion Baht, an increase of 336.7% over the same quarter a year earlier

Commenting on the success of the recent launches, Mr. Ted Thirapatana, Chief Business Development Officer for Ananda, stated, “Another very strong sales performance for our recent launches and our ability to raise prices shows that well located projects are in demand from Thai consumers. We have now achieved 41% of our initial annual presales target in the first quarter and we still have 10 of our 12 planned project launches this year still to come.”

The company ended the quarter with a record backlog of 34.3 billion Baht, due to transfer over the next 3 years, an increase of 28.5% from the previous quarter and 80.8% from the same quarter a year earlier.

1st quarter revenues from sales of real estate were 1.2 billion Baht and net profits were 74 million Baht for the quarter. The guidance for the annual revenue for the year remains unchanged from that given earlier in the year at between 10 - 11 billion Baht. The company’s net margin was 5% for the quarter.

Commenting on the results Ms Muntana Au-kitkajorn, Chief Financial Officer for Ananda Development said, “The revenue results were broadly as expected with no new projects completing construction and beginning to transfer in the quarter. The profits were better than expected as the company was very successful in continuing to control costs in the quarter, with selling expenses falling from 9% of presales in the same quarter last year to only 2% in this quarter. Our administration costs actually fell by 6% from the same quarter a year ago despite the company’s rapid growth.

Mr Chanond Ruangkritya, CEO of Ananda, said, "We are delighted to have achieved such strong results in the quarter and in particular that our new projects were so well received. Ananda is the market leader in Bangkok mass transit living and have now become the largest seller of condominiums in Thailand and we believe we will maintain our leadership in the condominium market and end the year the number one seller of condominiums in the country. I’m extremely proud of my staff for having achieved this in only our third year as a public company.”

He added, “The overall economic situation is neither boom nor bust but condominiums close to mass transit stations are showing consistently strong take up rates across the last several years and we view the strong demand seen for mass transit condominiums as evidence of our view that the mass transit system is causing a transformation in the way Bangkok residents live, work and play and causing the redevelopment and modernization of the city’s housing away from townhouses along roads and to be high rises next to mass transit stations. We have established a clear position as the leading residential condominium developer, both benefiting from and accelerating this transformation. ”

He continued, “Despite this explosive growth we have maintained our operational discipline and brought down both our selling expense ratio and absolute fixed costs compared to last year. We also maintained financial discipline and achieved this growth without adding risk and maintained our net interest bearing debt to equity to only 1:1.”

He added, “We continue to invest in new technologies that will improve both speed and quality of construction. The technology transfer from our partner Mitsui Fudosan is continuing as our staffs learn their proprietary TQPMS construction management system and the Building Information Modelling initiative is now in full development.”

He concluded, “Our cash flow remains strong and we have maintained a large cash balance with over 1.9 billion Baht in cash at the end of the quarter. We have continued to have strong support from our banks and have multiple options in place to fund the cash needs of the company through the year depending on how the situation evolves. We successfully issued a new bond of 2 billion Baht, at 4.8% for three years and this helps bring down our overall cost of debt.”

Ashton Residence 41

Ashton Chula - Silom

Ananda is a publicly listed real estate development company listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (Symbol : ANAN)

The company is the leading developer in Thailand of residential condominium projects within 300 meters of mass transit stations. The company also develops landed housing projects in Bangkok.

Ananda’s primary brands are "IDEO" condominiums, situated within 300 meters of a mass transit station, which are targeted at first home buyers and professionals who value modern design, convenience and ease-of-access when choosing a place to live, and “ELIO” condominiums, situated within 600 meters of a mass transit station, which are aimed at those who want the IDEO lifestyle but at a lower cost.