I-City developer confident of hitting RM500mil sales target

I-Bhd, the master developer of i-City, is confident of sustaining double-digit sales growth to nudge it towards its target of RM500mil in annual revenues in three years.

The revenue growth would come mainly from its property development segment.

Deputy chairman Datuk Eu Hong Chew pointed out that the company’s property development hit a revenue of RM201mil for 2014, which was more than double the RM95mil recorded in the previous year.

“Sales of the property development segment for the first half of this year is 30% higher compared with the first half of last year,” he told reporters after the company’s AGM here yesterday.

The company’s i-City project contributed the majority of the sales for the first half of this year.

Eu said the focus on sales growth was part of the group’s plan to be a RM3bil company.

“Apart from the larger revenue contribution from the property development segment, we expect I-Bhd’s investment property portfolio to reach RM1bil by 2018.

“At the same time, we expect the revenue from the leisure segment to double compared with last year’s revenue of nearly RM50mil,” he said.

The group recently unveiled its RM3bil investment plan for a series of integrated tourism-related products at its 72-acre freehold i-City “ultrapolis” situated along the Federal Highway, hoping to attract over 30 million visitors a year by 2020.

The integrated tourism-related products comprising Leisure Park @i-City, three hotels (including the Best Western i-City Hotel and a planned four-star hotel by Hilton), the CentralPlaza @i-City super regional mall with a riverfront food and beverage (F&B), a convention and performing arts centre and a medical tourism project.

The group has invested RM70mil in its Leisure Park @i-City which draws about 90,000 visitors per week, and it planned to invest up to RM100mil more by 2018.

On CentralPlaza @i-City – a regional mall, to be jointly-developed with the Central Pattana Group, he said the construction work is expected to start in the final quarter of this year. “Furthermore, the mall will be complemented by a riverfront F&B development, deriving from the concept of the popular Clarke Quay in Singapore, to provide visitors a great shopping and dining experience by the river.

“A state-of-the-art convention and performing arts centre will be constructed adjacent to the mall, which is set to be an ideal place to host a wide range of MICE (Meeting, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibition) events and world-class performances,” he said.

Due to i-City’s status as Malaysia Multimedia Super Corridor cyber centre, Eu said the group was looking to invest in a robotic surgery centre which would drive a revolution in health services in the country as part of its medical tourism plan. - By The Star