Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Far East Consortium International Limited 2022 to 2023 interim results presentation. Before we begin, let me introduce the management representatives. They are Executive Director and Managing Director, Mr. Chris Hoong.
Hi, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Chris Hoong, I'm the Managing Director.
Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary, Mr. Boswell Cheung. Head of Corporate Development and M&A, Mr. Alexis Adamczyk.
Good morning.
May I invite Mr. Hoong to start the presentation. Mr. Hoong, please.
Good morning. What I'd like to do is to run through the PowerPoint presentation, which I hope you have a copy. If you don't, please refer to our website, which is www.fecil.com.hk. If I may start with page 5 of the presentation. I'd like to give you a number of highlights so far as our first half numbers are concerned. The first key highlight is that we experience growth in our core businesses. On an adjusted revenue basis, this is adjusting for the Gold Coast joint venture, which was accounted for as an associate. The total adjusted revenue was up 13% to HKD three and a half billion.
The adjusted cash profit attributable to shareholders was up about 7.3% to almost HKD 900 million for the first half. In so far as property development business is concerned, the adjusted revenue for property development was up 3.3% to HKD 1.9 billion. The cumulative presales and unbooked contracted sales figure reached a record high of HKD 18 billion as at September 30th, 2022. So far as hotel is concerned, the demand for hotel rooms increased steadily, resulting in strong revenue growth of 36.2% in the first half. So far as our car park is concerned, we also saw a consistent organic growth of about 18% following the lifting of the COVID-19 restrictions in many of the cities that we operate in.
Gaming operations, the revenue was up about 70.5% year-on-year. We also recently received approval for an online gaming license, which is very good news. The second key themes for the first half of 2023 is that we continue to recycle the non-core assets, and we do have plan to continue with the disposal of a number of non-core assets. The target size for disposal is about HKD 2.5 billion-3.5 billion. The non-core assets will include minority stakes in hotel, and also there is also one site that we have in Sydney, which is under a joint venture with Star Entertainment.
That site is being acquired by a metro in Sydney for the construction of the new rail line and is earmarked for basically completion hopefully in the next in the first half of say in the second half of the year. We have also completed the sale of Vauxhall Square in the UK, realising about HKD 1 billion in proceeds. We have also recently been taking a very active stance in disposing some of the mature car parks that we currently own.
We will use the proceeds to pay down some debt. We have used part of the proceeds to acquire a very prime piece of land on the Hong Kong Island, which is in Sai Ying Pun, which is 2 stops away from Central. Very rare piece of land, and we are very excited about the development opportunity there. It's part of our, I guess, replenishing of a land bank as we sell down other projects. The third theme that I can highlight for the first half is that we've continued to see a very strong recovery in the recurring income business.
The total recurring revenue was up about 33.5% to HKD 1.4 billion. Hotel business is well positioned for reopening. We've seen basically across almost all geographies except for China, a recovery in the first half. I will comment about Hong Kong a bit later on, given the change in quarantine requirement here. We will be earmarking to open 2 new hotels in the second half, The Ritz-Carlton in Melbourne, as well as the Dorsett in Melbourne. This will, when it's open, contribute to future cash flow stream for the hotels. The organic growth in car park, as you can see, is continuing as the recovery process continues.
PALASINO, which is the brand that we have adopted, following the acquisition of TWC for our casino business in Czech Republic, delivered very strong and resilient performance. As I mentioned just now, we obtained an online license in November. The fourth theme that I would like to mention for the first half result is the rapid growth of our mortgage lending business, BC Invest. We issued 2 RMBS in the first half, raising about AUD 824 million in aggregate. We began to really shifting more to RMBS program that has a mix with a large proportion of Australian domestic mortgages as well as SMSF prime borrowers.
This RMBS program actually allow us to raise capital to fund the ongoing growth of the business. The loans and advances, including mortgage port, stood at about HKD 3.5 billion as at September 30th . Including third party AUM, we have now a total AUM of about HKD 4.5 billion as of September 30th . The 5th items that I'd like to mention is our efforts to reduce gearing as of September 30th . Because of basically a significant reduction in Forex exchange rate versus Hong Kong dollar almost a lot of our overseas operation, including UK, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, as well as Mainland China.
The exchange rate movement has resulted in basically a reduction in Hong Kong dollar equity as reported. That has resulted in an increase in gearing ratio. Having said that, we have seen basically a recovery of this Forex post September 30th . We're expecting a significant settlements coming through in the second half from Westside Place, which will be the proceeds will be used to settle the construction loan. That is a very big project. The reduction in that will help overall reduction in overall gearing level.
The active sell-down of inventory, the HKD 5.7 billion that we have, as well as the sale of non-core business, will actually help the help us to reduce overall liability and therefore, hopefully reduce the gearing level as well. In terms of, basically, looking forward, we are expecting or we have seen recent completions including Mount Arcadia, Westside Place, Tower 1 and 2, MeadowSide 2, 3 and 5, The Star Residences in Tower 1, and also Dao by Dorsett West London, which is a new brand that we've launched to for long stay product. The upcoming launches, this include the Victoria Riverside Tower A, which we launched recently and has received a pretty strong feedback.
Collyhurst Village is also a project in Manchester which we launched recently. The Kai Tak Residential, as well as Sai Ying Pun. These are all projects that we are earmarking to launch in the next 12 to 18 months or so. In terms of upcoming completions, Westside Place, Tower 3 and 4, New Cross Central, Hornsey Town Hall, Ritz-Carlton Melbourne, Dorsett Melbourne, Dao by Dorsett Hornsey, Dorsett Kai Tak, as well as the casino in Queen's Wharf, Brisbane, are all earmarking to be completed in the next 12 months or so. We are expecting actually quite significant big completions coming up very soon. I'm not gonna go through in detail page 8.
That is a very detailed slide setting out the status of our various projects in a later section. The message there is that we are coming into a stage where there is gonna be actually quite significant completions of a number of very large size projects. Turning on to page 9 of the presentation. T his is a summary of the financials, on a statutory accounting basis, the revenue was HKD 3 billion, a slight drop compared to last year. I, as I mentioned just now, we did not account the contribution of Gold Coast Residence in the top line revenue. It was accounted as an associate contribution.
If you adjust for that, our total adjusted revenue was HKD 3.5 billion, it was up about 13% compared to last year. The gross margin of the various businesses was up to 35.4% versus 31.6% in the same corresponding period last year. The profit before tax was HKD 860 million compared to HKD 1.4 billion last year. If I may just explain that, in the last corresponding period, we did have two transaction that was not repeated in the first half. One is the disposal of a hotel in London, and that contributed, I think, about HKD 500+ million.
Also there was a revaluation gain on the investment property last year which wasn't repeated in the first half of this year. Then the net profit figure was HKD 571 million. If you adjust for the non-cash items in term of the P&L including the revaluation surplus, the depreciation in particular, and as well as some movement in our treasury position. The adjusted cash profit was up about 7.3%. The board yesterday discussed the dividend, and we've decided to actually declare a dividend of HKD 0.04 per share. Now it's worth noting that we had a bonus issue of share recently. It's a 1 for 10 issues.
If you adjust for that, in fact the dividend figure is up about 10% because the dividend that we declared, HKD 0.04 per share, is on a basically a large share capital basis. The cumulative pre-sales and unbooked contracted sales we reach about HKD 18 billion, which was up about 7.4% compared to the year-end figure at 31st of March 2022. The NAV per share, given the Forex differences, we experienced basically a reduction in NAV per share to about 11.53%. Sorry, HKD 11.53 per share, and this is adjusted for the hotel revaluation surplus as of 31st of March 2022.
Going to page 10 of the presentation, which basically sets out the gross profit margin of the various businesses. You'll see that in term of contribution from various division, with the exception of I think property development, where our margin was at about 39%. We experienced growth in margin for almost all other divisions, including hotel, car park and gaming, as well as others. Others was down a little, but the core businesses for recurring income were all up. As a result, the overall gross margin before depreciation was at 14.6%, which was up from 37.8% in the same period last year.
This is all were attributable, I guess, to the stronger performance across the recurring income businesses. If you turn to page 11, I think we also analyze the impact of the Forex position against Hong Kong dollar. You'll see that across almost all the key local currencies that where we have operations in almost all of the currencies are depreciated against Hong Kong dollar. Because that's because Hong Kong dollar is pegged to US dollar. To give you an example, for example, the AUD was marked down to 5.09. The GBP was marked down to 8.74.
As of today, I think we've seen some recovery of that versus the period and exchange rate. Because of this, right, we, because of a lot of our equity investment in overseas currencies are denominated in overseas currencies, when we mark that down, well, when we mark the assets or the equity to HKD as of September 30th , we had to also mark down the value of this equity that we have invested in. If the exchange rate were to remain constant, in fact, the NAV of the company would have been HKD 2.8 billion higher as of September 30th, 2022.
These are more an accounting impact rather than a real financial impact. Yeah. If you look at page 12 of the presentation, you'll see that in term of the long-term NAV growth of the business is on an upward trend. The dividend figure that we displayed on this slide is before adjusting for the bonus issue, one for 10 bonus issue. If you can see that the longer-term trend is also on the rise. We're quite keen to want to protect the trend as we progress our business.
If you turn to page 13 of the presentation, it's worth noting that because of the impact of Forex against the equity, that has resulted in basically, adjustment on both the net gearing ratio, as well as the net leverage ratio. Despite that, I think, on a net leverage ratio of 32.4%, and this is measured on the basis of net debts over total adjusted assets, I think is still at a pretty healthy level as a whole.
We think that this level should drop as there is a recovery in the Forex against Hong Kong dollar, which means that the equity in that is denominated in overseas currency, which we invested in term of our various overseas operation, should recover. On page 14 is an analysis of our short-term debt position. We had a short-term debt of about HKD 15.4 billion, of which HKD 1 billion relates to the 4.5% 2023 notes, which we will be repaying in May 2023. There is about HKD 5.4 billion of corporate hospitality and car park loan facility, which is on a secure basis.
A number of them has been refinanced or to a longer date or to be refinanced to a longer maturity. Project development loans, a lot of those are basic construction loan, and they are mostly backed by presales. We have HKD 18 billion of presales. As we build the development, we draw on the construction loan, and this loan will be repaid upon settlement. So, a big chunk of it is development loans, such as the one for Westside Place, stage three and four in Melbourne. Other corporate loans are being rolled over. This is about HKD 1.8 billion or being refinanced. The loans with, there's also loans with partial repayment clause.
These are really not repayable but has, they have a partial repayment clause, and this will be repaid, and that's about HKD 844 million. There's also basically loan with repayment on de-demand clause, in which we classify as short-term, and assets, but they are really not due for repayment, and this is about HKD 731 million. If you look at the liquidity position of the company, we and this is more, I think, highlighted on the next page.
We have basically about HKD 8.3 billion of liquidity position, of which, sorry, there is also basically undrawn banking line of about HKD 3.2 billion and undrawn banking facility for construction, which is about HKD 3.4 billion. We have about total liquidity and facility of about HKD 15 billion in total. We do have also some unencumbered hotel assets and also unsold inventory amounting to about HKD 7.3 billion, HKD 7.4 billion in total. That versus actually the short-term liability is a very comfortable position.
The short-term liability being the one that is actually due for repayment is actually a very comfortable level, including actually to cover the CapEx commitment that we have currently. Actually, it's also worth highlighting on the bottom of page 24, sorry, page 14, that we've completed the Vauxhall Square disposal that basically raised about HKD 1 billion in cash. This is all post-year-end number. The completion of Westside Place will be in the region of about HKD 2.5 billion. The disposal of car park assets, we are earmarking about HKD 300 million-HKD 500 million, and some disposal of non-core hotel assets and minority stakes of about HKD 1 billion-HKD 2 billion.
In total, we are expecting, on the disposal side, about HKD 4.8 billion-HKD 6 billion of asset disposal coming. That compared to actually the liability, which is due for repayment, is at a very comfortable level. If I may just turn to page, just moving on the review of operations, page 17. You will see. This is just to give you some update on basically a number of completions and a number of projects which are due to be completed. On page 17 is a picture of MeadowSide, plot 5, as well as on the bottom left-hand corner, picture of plot 2 and 3.
It's a beautiful project. We are trying to get some awards for these two new completion. The total GDV of this project is about HKD 1.2 billion. We are basically, we have settled a significant portion already as of September 30th . There will be more due earmarked for completion as well, post the period end. Star Residence, this is a joint venture that we do with Star Entertainment as well as Chow Tai Fook. 422 apartments in total was completed along with the Dorsett Gold Coast. The attributable GDV was about HKD 458 million or HKD 500 million. This was accounted for as associate income.
The upcoming completion, you can see from the picture on page 19, Westside Place, Tower 3 and 4, they are almost done now, and it's earmarked for basically settlement in the second half of the current financial year. It's quite a big project, with GDV of about HKD 5 billion. I think, we have budgeted for maybe 50% to be settled in the second half, and then the rest basically, in the coming, in the following months. Hornsey Town Hall, there are actually two blocks, which we have started the settlement of one of the two blocks. We are earmarking basically to complete this project soon.
The interesting thing is there is actually a town hall in the development where we'll be having a long stay product in there as well. The town hall will be used for co-working space and should add to hopefully the revenue stream of the business. New Cross Central on page 21. This project is another interesting small project within the Northern Gateway development in Manchester. It's also a joint venture project that we have with MCC, but we have 100 percent control of this. It's only about 80 apartments, and we are earmarking to start handover in January of next year. It'll give you basically a summary of all the projects.
Unfortunately, we don't have the time to go through every single one of them, but on page 22, you'll see that in terms of the total cumulative attributable pre-sales for all our projects is about HKD 18 billion. In terms of the expected GDV for the entire pipeline projects, including the one that we will be launching in the coming years, is about HKD 60.5 billion. And it's quite a significant pipeline, and it should be sufficient for us for the next at least eight years or so. This is. We are in a very comfortable position.
Even we, if we do not replenish any land bank anymore, we can basically sustain the pipeline of residential development for I think eight years without having to replenish any land at all. This is, of course, a big pipeline that we currently have in hand. The recent launches, page 23, Victoria Riverside Tower A. This is a piece of land that is within the Victoria North development, or it was previously called Northern Gateway. It's now named Victoria North. You can see that there are a few towers there, and we have sold one of the tower to a fund. The other two residential towers, we have now officially launched. It's GDV of about HKD 900 million or so.
It's expected to be completed in the financial year 2025. The Collyhurst Estate on page 24. It is this is one of the sort of housing projects that we have with Manchester City Council. They have actually assigned the land to us at a nominal value. In return, we are responsible to basically deliver some affordable housing to them. We have signed a contract with them to deliver the affordable housing for HKD 306 million. This is at a very low margin to basically compensate them for basically the land contribution that they make. But we can freely sell the private residential, which has a GDV of about HKD 350 million.
These sort of products is actually quite popular nowadays in Manchester. The Kai Tak development, it is a JV that we have with New World Development. Our attributable GDV is about HKD 6.6 billion. At the moment, we are... I think so far as competitiveness is concerned, there are a few projects in this area. This project should have one of the lowest costs compared to the others, which is, I guess a water facing. You know, we bought this from Kaisa Group a year ago, and we are basically almost finalized the planning now, and construction has started on the, basically the, what I call the yellow area, which is the common, the public amenities.
This is earmarked to be launched in the next 12 months or so. So far as hotel operations are concerned, on page 26, sorry, 27, you see that, in fact, across the different market segment, with the exception of China, which is, I think the operations are being affected very much by the COVID lockdown. All other regions have experienced actually strong recovery in RevPAR. For example, Hong Kong RevPAR recovery was about 49%. Malaysia was up about 52%. Singapore, and this is not accounting for the Dao by Dorsett, which is a JV, which has actually doubled in revenue.
The Dorsett in Singapore experienced about 10% recovery in term of RevPAR. UK was up about 100%. Australia was up about 33%. Generally speaking, we've experienced basically a rebound in hospitality across different geographies. Now, TWC, actually you see that there's also a rebound of RevPAR of about 88%. These are basically, we haven't grouped this as a Dorsett hotel, because it's operated actually by Transworld Corporation, which is our subsidiary, a separate entity separately. They have also in Continental Europe experienced 88% increase in RevPAR.
Specifically commenting on Hong Kong, as I think there was a question about from one of the investor that we came across asking about hotel in Hong Kong. I'd like to just say that, look, following, of course, the change in the quarantine requirement in Hong Kong, we've seen, of course, the quarantine stay business dropping. However, having said that, I think it's a path to hopefully going back to the normality in the Hong Kong space. October number was down compared to the same period last year.
As we progress into the months, we've seen gradual recovery and some encouraging sign that actually tourists are beginning to come back to Hong Kong. I think we still there's still some way to go. I think it'll take maybe a few months to get back to the normal level. We are seeing actually positive sign that actually the Hong Kong numbers is following the, you know, significant drop following the change in the quarantine rule in Hong Kong, a gradual actually recovery of the business. This will, I think, impact on the second half, it will be gradually seeing recovery as we go into the later part of the second half.
But the overall hotel numbers, I think overseas, we continue to see actually recovery on the same period comparison, you know, we're seeing basically still double-digit growth across the other regions. So, fingers crossed, we hope to see basically as flights are being added, the recovery trend will continue. And it will be supported by the opening of some new hotels as well. For example, the Dorsett West London, we are still not optimal yet, but with the addition of this hotel, I think it was in June that we opened, the full contribution will come through in the second half of the financial year.
Dao by Dorset, Singapore, I mentioned just now we've seen actually a very, very strong business growth. We have taken over the management of this particular hotel from Oakwood. There will be, in addition to our share of profit for this operation, we will also be entitled to a management fee as well, from this, from this property. So far as the number of pipeline hotels, we are expecting that the new hotels will increase by about 2,000 rooms or so, up to the 31st of March 2025. These additions of rooms should add to the recurring income stream of the business.
Two hotels in particular is earmarked to open in the second half, which is the Dorsett Melbourne as well as The Ritz-Carlton Melbourne. The Dorsett Melbourne, you can see from page 31, is almost complete now. I think they are in the race with The Ritz-Carlton to see which one will open first. The Dorsett Melbourne will have 316 rooms, and it's our first Dorsett in Melbourne. We have opened a Dorsett in Gold Coast, which has performed very well. In fact, better than expected. Hopefully, the Dorsett in Melbourne will also do well. It occupies level 3 to level 8 of Westside Place Tower 3. The Ritz-Carlton Melbourne on page 32, this is the tallest hotel in Australia.
It's 18 floors, occupying 18 floors in Westside Place Tower 1. It will be surrounded by the very best of entertainment, education, F&B in the area. If you guys are visiting Melbourne any days, just let us know, and we will arrange a site visit for you. The other upcoming hotel completion is the Dao by Dorset Hornsey. This is a service apartment development. We actually obtained the development right from the council a few years ago. They've also given us basically the development right for the residential around it. If you can see, actually, it is actually gonna be a remarkable Grade II listed town hall complex.
We're very excited to actually be adding value to the development. We obtained this site for GBP 3 million a few years ago together with the development site. This should give us a pretty good profit margin overall. Kai Tak Development, this project is gonna be the first hotel that will be completed on the Kai Tak development. As we all know, there is a very big sports complex that are being built in the area. This hotel is progressing very well in term of construction. We have sold basically the office tower, which is across from this hotel to China Light and Power.
The completion of that will add to basically the cash flow that will be coming back to us. This will be a landmark hotel for us in Hong Kong. We're very excited to actually see that this is the construction is progressing on time, on schedule. Far as car park is concerned, I'd just like to say that the growth of the business is primarily driven by organic growth. We are reviewing a number of our own car parks. Given the rise in interest rate, we've taken the decision that we want to basically reduce some ownership in some of this car park, and we are actively selling down some of these assets.
As a result, you will see that actually, going forward, the contribution from owned car parks will come down, but the managed car park should be really where, hopefully the organic growth will be coming from. Turning to page 38, which is the gaming operations. I think the key highlight there is really the construction of Queen's Wharf. You can see on page 38 is progressing to a very advanced level now. I think for people who have visited Brisbane recently, you will see that this is a very big landmark development in the city. There is a bridge that links one side of the river to the other, and that's almost completed now.
There is some issues with The Star Entertainment Group, I think it's very well publicized. I won't go into detail. I'd like to say that the issues that have been highlighted by the authority has been actively addressed. Hopefully, we will overcome that issue shortly. The Star will resume back to normal. That is what we expect to see. There will be also 849 rooms added to this development, of which we own 25%. The casino part will be open, I think, it's earmarked currently to open end of the next calendar year. That will also add to income stream coming back to FEC. PALASINO, which is our Transworld casino operation. This is on page 39.
We've seen actually a strong rebound in the business. This across actually all the three casinos that we own. We obtained the online gaming license, which was issued by the Malta authority in November 2022. We plan to launch the operations next year. We're still going through some technical adjustment to the product offerings. We will selectively target certain market initially. Hopefully, that will give our customers a more product offering. We are also I mean, given the strong business performance, we also exploring ways where we can actually monetize I guess the strong results from these operations.
The Star relationship, I think this is an old slide that we recap. There, there's been a lot of joint ventures that were struck in term of the development on their sites, including the one in Gold Coast. I think Sydney, there's also an opportunity to develop on their site. There's one point to note there is that Star Entertainment also has a big portfolio of hotel assets, and we are reviewing that along with our hotel portfolios in Australia. There may be some opportunity there to create some interesting portfolio together. At the right time, we will be making further announcements so far as this portfolio is concerned.
In term of other businesses, I think the key really is the VC business. I think, as you can see from the bottom right-hand corner, the AUM growth of the business has been very, very strong, and we continue to see actually good momentum being maintained in that platform. Of course, the interest rate is an issue. I think, with higher interest rate, maybe people want to delay their purchase of property. The underlying substance of this business is remain, I think, sound. It is an asset-light business where, you know, we source third-party capital to finance the growth in the loan, and we take the net interest margin as our income.
This could be at the right time, also a potential spin-off opportunity for FEC Group. Coming up to basically the final section of the presentation, I think so far as outlook is concerned, we have very strong presales and unbooked sales figure of about HKD 18 billion. That give a lot of visibility for our cash flow stream in the coming years. There will be a number of new launches, including the Collyhurst Village as well as Kai Tak. And also the Sai Ying Pun site that we bought. The settlement of Westside Place, Tower 3 and 4 in Melbourne, Hornsey Town Hall, New Cross Central, these will all be making contributions to the second half of the financial year.
The Tower 2 of The Star Residences called Epsilon and Queen's Wharf Tower 4, the construction is progressing well and is expected to be completed in the next couple of years. All this will provide actually cash flow stream to the group as well. Far as land bank acquisition is concerned, honestly, we are taking an approach where we want to digest some of the land bank that we have currently. We do not rule out any opportunities, but it has to be very, very attractive to us before we make any move. The priority for us currently is to more focus on perhaps in this interest rate environment, right? Not to be too aggressive in term of CapEx.
We will be toning down a little in terms of land bank acquisitions and use the capital more carefully in terms of reducing debt. We still have an inventory of about HKD 5.7 billion, so the active sell down of that will contribute to additional cash flow as well as profit. Far as hotel is concerned, we think that Hong Kong, you know, the going back to normality, there will be some short-term impact, but longer-term it's good news for us because Hong Kong the normal occupancy rate should be around 90%+. It will take time to get back to that level. We've seen actually airlines adding flights, which is good news for Hong Kong.
This include a significant announcement by Cathay to add a lot of new flights coming into Hong Kong as well as, you know, British Airways resuming their flights and also along with other airlines. Hopefully that will contribute to the recovery of Hong Kong. As to other regions, I think we've seen actually the recovery momentum continuing, so that's good news. The addition of new hotels such as The Ritz-Carlton Melbourne as well as Dorsett Melbourne will contribute to our operation in the coming years. We are actually quite excited at the moment to see the recovery.
So far as car parking business is concerned, as I mentioned just now, we'll be focusing more on third-party management business and recycle some of the capital that we have in the ownership business and try to reduce our gearing level as well, especially in the rising interest rate environment. Insofar as gaming operations is concerned, the key growth driver will be Queen's Wharf. The organic growth of PALASINO is good, and Malta online gaming license, hopefully longer term, it will take. I won't want to say that it will immediately add to the EBITDA of the business. I think it will take maybe two years for it to be EBITDA positive.
Once it's EBITDA positive, that business is a very asset-light business and it should improve the overall return on equity in the business for us. BC is a promising new business and we have also launched some asset management business, a green mortgage fund that we have established. Longer term, this could be, I mentioned just now, a good spin-off opportunity. Last but not least, I just want to just comment of on a couple of slides on ESG. We have taken very active steps in actually strengthening our governance to improve the ESG performance. We have formed key internal committees within the ESG working group to support the ESG committee.
We will be continuing to make, I think, fine-tuning to how we actually measure ourself, developing new KPIs, for various businesses, setting long-term goals, in term of, I guess, improving, our, ESG, standard. The new buildings that we're building, for example, now are all of green standard, meeting, very high, requirement, for our stakeholders. So far as, awards are concerned, I'm very proud to say that we've continued to win, many new awards, in the first half of the financial year, including the FinanceAsia's, Best Companies 2022. We won the Best Small Company, Small Cap Company award in Hong Kong.
In term of investor relations as well, Best IR Company, Best Investor Meeting, Best Annual Report. very proud to say that, look, if you read our result announcement or the or our annual report, we actually give a lot more disclosures compared to our peer group. We will maintain a very high standard of transparencies with the investment community. I think with that, I would like to conclude my presentation and happy to take any questions. Thank you.
We will now come to the Q&A section. Should you have any questions, please type it in the Q&A box. We will read it out one by one.
Well, we've got some questions. Any plan on the reduction of the gearing ratio?
Yes. As I mentioned in the presentation. We have earmarked for some disposal in the second half, in the sum of about HKD 2.5 billion-HKD 3.5 billion of which HKD 1 billion relates to Vauxhall Square, which has been completed. The Union Street land in Sydney is, which is a joint venture land. I think we already have basically a notice for basically for the government to take possession. We will be paid. We are still finalizing the valuation for that piece of land, but we expect that this should be done in the next couple of months or so. That will add to basically the cash, the disposal of the minority stake assets.
We have actually signed one contract to sell a car park and one smaller one has also been signed. There will be more actually disposal of some of these assets. All that will be more earmarked for debt reduction. Also, I think with the completion of some large scale projects such as Westside Place, Tower 3 and 4, the proceeds from there will be used to repay down construction loan which should help reduce the overall debt level as well.
Okay. I guess, well, there are a few question I summarize, and followed by the reduction of the gearing, right? Yeah. Another question is on the how much the exact number of debt to be repaid or refinanced within 1 year? I guess this one I can answer it.
Yeah.
Yeah. Actually, on page 14 we have got a slide telling, I mean, showing the breakdown of the debt outstanding within a year. How should we do for the refinancing or the repayment or some other actually it's a repayment repayable on demand process. While in this page you can see that the notes that will be mature in May next year, that is talking about HKD 1 billion. The other payment with repayment terms, which will be, well, on a payment schedule, is about HKD 800 million. Added up all together, it's talking about HKD 2 billion. That's just the exact amount, I guess, we will be repaid within a year.
The remaining is actually, like what Chris just mentioned. This is a project related. Once we hand over our project, the loan is actually reduced. The other loans are actually on the secure or unsecured basis that will be refinanced and roll over as well. Another question is, any update on the plan of listing our hotel assets?
Well, I think the timing is important. We have not pushed any button on the listing of hotel assets. On the other hand, we have started basically exploring together with The Star Entertainment Group to combine actually the Australian portfolio. Together, I think we have a very big portfolio in prominent locations across Australia. It is, I must qualify that by saying it is at a very early stage of the discussion, but the direction is clear. I think there is definitely synergies as well as common interests in creating actually a interesting pool of assets in Australia in hospitality. Given the recovery of the business, we actually see that this could be an interesting proposition for the market. That's all I can say.
Unfortunately, I can't say too much about it at this stage. That's something which is definitely worth watching in the coming months.
In the past, in the last 18 months, we see quite a lot of projects. Are we still looking for some other acquisition?
I mentioned, I think in the presentation just now, we do have a very strong pipeline at the moment. I think the priority for us is to digest the pipeline. We will be very, very highly selective in term of acquiring more development land. We are a developer, so we do need to selectively replenish. We have done, I think we now have a pipeline of eight years on our balance sheet. And we can stop buying land for the next three years and still have a very healthy pipeline should we wish to do that.
I think given the rising interest rate environment and all that, we'll be very cautious in adding new land bank, unless we see something really, really attractive. The focus for us is to raise the cash, through the completion of the assets and disposal of the completed products, and then reduce the gearing level. Yeah.
Some investors are asking the Brisbane Casino, any update on the completion and where, when will it be open?
Again, I think I mentioned this in our presentation just now. We are earmarking to open the first phase towards the end of the next calendar year.
Any plan, regarding the perpetual bonds?
Any plan regarding the perpetual bond? This is, I think, still more than 12 months ahead. I think the idea is that, you know, we will be reviewing and then repaying the perps. Given the step up interest rate, it make more sense to repay it than to keep it. Yeah.
This comes to the end of our investor presentation. Thanks again for joining us