KUALA LUMPUR: YTL Corp Bhd reported net profit of RM207.51 million in its first quarter ended Sept 30, down 17.7% from the RM252.36 million a year ago.

The company announced on Thursday, Nov 19, that revenue jumped 126% to RM3.93 billion from RM1.74 billion. Earnings per share were 11.71 sen compared with 16.88 sen.

YTL Corp said pre-tax profit rose 59.5% to RM503.15 million compared with RM315.4 million last year, after adjusting for the fair-value gain on investment properties recognised last year amounting to RM254.5 million.

Group managing director Tan Sri Francis Yeoh Sock Ping said all divisions across the board registered earnings increases. Its utilities division, PowerSeraya in Singapore, the newest addition to the group, continued to boost earnings this quarter. At 3,100 megawatts, PowerSeraya Ltd owns about 25% of Singapore’s licensed generation capacity. Yeoh said Wessex Water Ltd in the UK was the top-performing water company there.

“Looking at the year ahead, we expect our divisions to continue to operate steadily. We also announced yesterday a rationalisation of the RM8 billion in hotel and retail assets currently under the group’s control into global REIT portfolios.

"These assets are currently owned by the group’s hotels division, Starhill REIT in Malaysia and Starhill Global REIT in Singapore and the rationalisation exercise is intended to streamline the operations of these entities, with Starhill REIT to be repositioned as a global hospitality REIT with new hotel and hospitality-related assets to be injected to increase its portfolio to an eventual size of RM1.6 billion," he said.

YTL Power's revenue rose 205.3% to RM3.20 billion due mainly to the consolidation of results from PowerSeraya Ltd, which YTL Power acquired in March. Profit before taxation was RM318.9 million, up 29.7% from the RM245.8 million a year ago.

The group’s utilities interest comprise the Paka and Pasir Gudang power stations in Malaysia, Wessex Water, PowerSeraya, PT Jawa Power (a 35%-owned associate company) in Indonesia and ElectraNet Pty Ltd (a 33.5% indirect investment) in Australia.

YTL Power declared a 7.5% single-tier first interim dividend for FY2010 ending June 30.