Genting quarterly net profil fell 43%

Net income for the three months ended March 31 dropped to us$129 million, from us$ 225.8 million, a year earlier, according to a filing to the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange today. Revenue declined 2.8 % to us$ 1.34 billion.

The Kuala Lumpur-based company is the parent of Genting Singapore, which earlier this month reported a 44 % drop in first-quarter profit to us$ 91.3 million. Profit from the group’s plantations division dropped on lower palm oil prices, the firm said.

Genting slid 1.2 percent to close in Kuala Lumpur, before the earnings were released. The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index lost 0.5 percent. The stock has risen 12 % this year, compared with the benchmark gauge’s 5.1 % increase.

Its Genting Malaysia unit plans to invest us$ 100 million in the Bahamas Marina project, Lim Kok Thay, chairman of Genting, said at an April 18 conference in Singapore. The subsidiary opened a casino at the Aqueduct Racetrack in New York in October, controls casino operators in the U.K. and owns Resorts World Sentosa, one of Singapore’s two gambling resorts.

The group’s plantation division’s pretax profit fell us$ 14.6 billion from us$ 32 billion in the same period last year while earnings from power climbed to us$ 26 million from us$ 10.8 million, the company said.