Country Garden Releases Financial Results for 2020, with a target of 10% sales growth in next 3 years

      - Company management expresses confidence in its ability to grow contracted sales revenue by 10% annually over next three years

On March 25, Country Garden Holdings Company Limited ("Country Garden") (02007.HK) released its financial results for 2020. Despite the adverse impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the company expressed much satisfaction with the results achieved as a result of a well-balanced portfolio and sound capital management.

Key highlights:

• For the year ended December 31, 2020, Country Garden achieved contracted sales attributable to the shareholders of the Company of approximately RMB570.7 billion (approx. US$87.2 billion) with contracted sales GFA attributable to the shareholders of the Company of approximately 67.33 million sq.m.
• The Group recorded total revenue of approximately RMB462.9 billion (approx. US$70.7 billion), gross profit of approximately RMB100.9 billion (approx. US$15.4 billion) and net profit of approximately RMB54.1 billion (approx. US$8.3 billion) for the full year.
• As at 31 December 2020, the Group's total debt had decreased by 11.7% to approximately RMB326.5 billion (approx. US$50 billion) from RMB369.6 billion (approx. US$56.5 billion) a year earlier. Net gearing ratio stood at 55.6%, lower than the redline of 70% for several consecutive years.

During the reporting period, the company had good working capital capability, with available cash balance reaching 183.6 billion yuan (approx. US$28 billion), in tandem with a cash and short-term debt ratio of about 1.9.

As of the end of December 2021, the total number of projects contracted or already removed from the market due to being fully sold out in mainland China reached 2,958, having gained footholds in 289 cities and 1,350 counties/townships across 31 provinces, autonomous regions and self-governing municipalities. The firm continues to top the industry in terms of the breadth of its portfolio.

As of the end of 2020, the value of Country Garden's properties that are or could be made available for sale in mainland China amounted to 2.25 trillion yuan (approx. US$344 billion), including about 1.75 trillion yuan (approx. US$267 billion) in properties that have already been acquired and 503.5 billion yuan (approx. US$77 billion) in properties for which it has an option to acquire, placing the company in a position to support the company's sales demand for the next more than 3.5 years.

In 2020, Country Garden acquired 511 new plots of lands for a total attributable cost of RMB210 billion (approx. US$32 billion), with 65% of the land located in third and fourth tier cities. During the reporting period, more than 90% of the projects approved for sale achieved annual returns on investment exceeding 30%.

At the press conference, the Group's management revealed that value for its contracted GFA for the full year is expected to be more than sufficient and to top 960 billion yuan (approx. US$147 billion) in value.

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