Ibraco CEO raises his stake

Chew Chiaw Han is fourth largest shareholder in firm

KUCHING: Ibraco Bhd chief executive officer Chew Chiaw Han has increased his stake in the Sarawak-based property developer by more than 3% to 14.2% after acquiring an additional 3.1mil shares in the open market since last month.

Most of Chew's shareholdings are held by his private firm, Hiap Ghee Seng Sdn Bhd.

He is the fourth largest shareholder of Ibraco, a Practice Note 17 (PN17) company. The single largest shareholder Sharifah Deborah Sophia Ibrahim has a 21.7% stake, followed by executive director Datuk Wee Song Ching (20.08%) and Singaporean Ng Cheng Chuan (16.6%). Ibraco has a paid-up capital of about RM100mil.

Chiew Chiaw Han hopes the the company’s PN17 status will be lifted soon.

Ibraco, which is undertaking its biggest-ever commercial, industrial and residential project known as Tabuan Tranquility along the Kuching-Samarahan Expressway, posted a pre-tax profit of RM3.87mil on a turnover of RM19.4mil for the last quarter ended March 31.

In Q4-2010, it registered a pre-tax profit of RM12.89mil on revenue of RM27.4mil.

After reporting profits for two consecutive quarters, Ibraco was looking forward to the lifting of the PN17 status, hopefully by next month, Chew said.

“We are submitting our request to the authorities concerned to have the PN17 status lifted,” Chew told StarBiz yesterday.

Ibraco was classified a PN17 company after its revenue for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2009 fell below 5% of its paid-up capital. However, it has completed its regularisation scheme, pre-requisite to exit the PN17 in December last year.

Chew said Ibraco had sold RM168.3mil worth of properties in Tabuan Tranquility.

“The sales comprise of RM84mil worth of commercial units (phase I) and RM84.3mil worth of residential homes (phase 5),” he added.

The project, which has a gross development value of RM517mil, is planned for five-phase development up to 2015.

The 76 units of shophouses that would make up the proposed commercial mall in the project are priced between RM1mil and RM1.79mil. The mall is expected to be completed in three months.

Phase 5 residential development comprises 204 terraced houses and 38 semi-detached houses priced between RM363,000 and RM800,000. The houses are expected to be ready by November, 2012.

Ibraco, which has built more than 10,000 properties over the years has a landbank of about 285ha in Sarawak with more than 50% of the land in Kuching.