Mr Adisorn Thananan-narapool, Director and Senior Executive Vice-President of Land & Houses Plc, said about the performance during the third quarter of 2005 as following;

1. The company and subsidiaries recorded sales from the transfer of houses to homebuyers totaling 6.438 billion baht, a 6.6% rise from the previous quarter and a 20.6% jump from the same period last year.

This quarter was the period that the company could post a new high in housing sales again after registering the highest sales in the previous quarter.

2. In the third quarter, the company and subsidiaries had a gross profit margin at 34.5%, improving relatively from 33.4% in the first quarter and 34.2% in the second quarter of this year.

3. The company and subsidiaries posted a net profit of 1.484 billion baht, up 2.9% from 1.442 billion baht in the previous quarter.

However, the company saw a 24.3% decline in net profit when compared to the same period last year, which posted 1.961 billion baht, mostly contributed by profits from special transactions including;

Profit sharing from the investment in Land & Houses Property Fund

Gains from the sales of investment

Profits from the reversion of loss from asset depreciation and amortization

Special incomes from the land appropriation

For the financial status, the company and subsidiaries had cash flow worth 3.2 billion baht at the end of third quarter of 2005 and its net debt-to-equity ratio stood at 50%.

The company's operating performance

Mr Naporn Sunthornchitcharoen, another Senior Executive Vice-President of L&H, said the company delivered a total of 1,145 units to homebuyers in the third quarter of this year, up 20% year-on-year. During the first nine months of this year, the company has launched 11 new housing projects and planned to introduce two additional projects of Nantawan Onnuj-Rama 9 and Chollada Khon Kaen in the fourth quarter.

The company is on track to open new housing projects this year and it will have a total of 41 housing projects under construction, of which 31 are detached housing projects in Greater Bangkok, four condominium projects, two detached housing projects each in Chiang Mai and Khon Kaen and one each in Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat) and Phuket.

Mr Naporn said about the overall housing market that the new housing registration in Greater Bangkok during the first nine months of this year totaled 50,098 units, a 19.34% rise from the same period last year, and the expansion was mainly from both the self-built housing and housing projects built by developers

Comparison of housing registration in Greater Bangkok

Classified by type of development between 2001-2005