Has OCEAN Found a Promising Business in Property Development?
OCEAN may have finally found the right business to operate after changing its core business for the third time as well as the third set of board executives.
Once was an operator in faucet business, Ocean Commerce Public Company Limited (OCEAN), decided to turn to palm oil business instead by opening the path to a new set of Board of Directors to take the wheel.
The Lamair Palm Oil Co., Ltd., led by Chatchaya Tritrakulchai, did a tremendous job in bringing back OCEAN to the point of almost recording a net profit at the bottom line.
OCEAN’s revenue grew more than 100% to 1,808 million baht in 2019 with a net loss of only 30,000 baht. Palm oil business accounted for 82.3% of total revenue for the year.
Due to the economic slowdown and the coronavirus outbreak in 2020, causing OCEAN to crumble. In the first 9 months of 2020, the company reported only 185,000 baht of profit.
However, the knight in shiny armor appeared in 4Q20. Teera Chutivaraporn, who had been acquiring share positions in OCEAN since the end of 2019 from Chatchaya Tritrakulchai, surged as a major shareholder of OCEAN, along with a new approach to the business in consulting and property development business.
OCEAN was able to book 58 million baht of profit alone in 4Q20, mainly from the 539 million baht of revenue from the new business and the investment in V Sukhumvit 81 Co., Ltd, and that was pretty much its performance in the year.
The sudden jump in 4Q20 raised investors’ interest in the 1Q21 earnings, which turned out to be quite good. OCEAN reported a net profit of 17.25 million baht in 1Q21, increased 42.30% from a net profit of 12.12 million baht in 1Q20. The increase was mainly due to its revenue in the quarter at 150 million baht, increased significantly from a revenue of 0.02 million baht in 1Q20, supported by the consulting and property development business.
In the second quarter of 2021, OCEAN also expected to recognize revenue from the real estate development segment from its subsidiary company that operates the real estate development business with the IKON 77 project, the first project of OCEAN. The construction has been completed, and can start transferring ownership in 2Q21.
How the performance will progress, that is something to be looking forward to for the remainder of this year to see whether the property development will quickly come, quickly go like palm oil business, or will it become OCEAN’s core business that will bear fruit in the future.