KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 — Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd’s (KLK) net profit surged to RM490.44 million in the second quarter (Q2) ended March 31, 2021, from RM27.89 million a year earlier.

Revenue rose to RM4.51 billion from RM3.80 billion in the corresponding period of last year.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, the company said the surge in performance was contributed by better profits from its plantation, manufacturing and property development segments.

Foreign exchange gain in the corporate segment, surplus on sales of plantation land and government acquisitions also contributed to the improved earnings.

It said that pre-tax profit from the plantation segment was substantially higher at RM277.94 million due to better crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel (PK) selling prices realised for the quarter, which were up 16.5 per cent and 47 per cent year-on-year, respectively.

For the manufacturing segment, KLK said its profit doubled to RM196.90 million mainly due to improved profit margins and higher revenue of RM2.62 billion from RM1.98 billion a year earlier.

"Performance improvements from Malaysia, China and Europe operations also contributed positively to this segment’s profit.

"Profits from our oleochemical division jumped more than two-fold to RM199.2 million while other manufacturing units incurred a loss of RM2.3 million compared with RM1.1 million in Q2 of the previous financial year,” it noted.

Meanwhile, KLK’s property segment reported a higher profit of RM16.83 million from RM3.96 million a year earlier on the back of significant improvement in revenue to RM41.6 million compared with RM17.0 million, it said.

The group had also accounted for a corporate income of RM169.7 million in the quarter under review for the surplus of the sale of plantation land and government acquisitions amounting to RM154.6 million, surplus of RM12.2 million on the fair value of an ordinary investment which was previously an associate, as well as foreign exchange gain of RM9.6 million, it said.

Moving forward, KLK expects the group’s profit for the financial year ending September 30, 2021 (FY21) to be significantly higher.

"Plantation profit for this year is expected to be substantially higher as the current CPO prices remain buoyant, underpinned by tight palm oil inventories and global edible oil supplies.

"Amid a difficult operating environment, the oleochemical division has performed well and this division anticipates its profit for FY21 to be much better than the preceding year,” said KLK.

However, the company noted that the coming quarters would be challenging for this division due to zero-duty for oleochemical products in Indonesia. — Bernama