Paramount to go for smaller property launches

PARAMOUNT Corp Bhd will undertake new property launches but on a smaller scale in an effort to mitigate the risk of a slowing down in the market.

"We are not in a hurry to push the top line. What we can do is to keep the property market interested by doing new but smaller launches,” said group managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Teo Chiang Quan.

Speaking to reporters after the company’s extraordinary general meeting (EGM), he said the company had just two new launches this year in Kemuning Utama, Selangor and in Sungai Petani, Kedah.

According to Teo, the company has a combined 700-acre landbank in the Klang Valley and Sungai Petani, to be developed as major gross development value (GDV) projects.

The property segment contributed some 60 per cent to the company’s revenue while the remaining came from the education business through the KDU Group.

“We are looking for more landbank in the Klang Valley as it has a lot of potential,” he said, without indicating any size.

At the EGM, Paramount got its shareholders' nod to acquire the remaining 15 per cent stake in KDU College for RM25 million cash from Rohana Mahmood, a director of the college.

Rohana bought the stake in June 1997 at RM1.412 million.

“We might divest some of the stake in the future,” Teoh said.

He also said that the KDU Group would set up a school with a different concept in the Iskandar Development Region, Johor, as it was reviewing the original plan of establishing a Smart School there.

“We need to respond to the market place,” he said, adding that the new concept would change the original investment figure of about RM53 million.

By Bernama