Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Shui On Land's 2024 Analyst Briefing. Thank you very much for joining us online this evening. We are pleased to have five members of the senior management team with us today: Mr. Vincent Lo, our Chairman; Ms. Stephanie Lo, our Vice Chairman; Mr. Douglas Sung, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Shui On Land; Ms. Jessica Wang, Chief Executive Officer of Shui On Land; and Mr. Allan Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of Shui On Xintiandi. We will first start with a presentation by the management, followed by Q&A. During the course of the webcast, you may submit your questions via the webcast portal, and they will be conveyed to our management during the Q&A session. Without further ado, may I please invite Mr. Lo to start with some opening remarks? Mr. Lo, please.
Good evening, everybody. Last year has not been easy at all for everybody, including ourselves. We all have to face the economic transition, geopolitical uncertainties, and subdued consumer confidence in the mainland. Nevertheless, we have been able to maintain profitability. Shui On Land reported a profit of RMB 810 million for the year, with profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 180 million. The directors have recommended that the final dividend is HKD 0.036 per share. We have basically met all our financial obligations last year. Actually, since 2021, we have repaid RMB 45.2 billion in foreign loans. We have been relentless in our efforts to control our capital and our liquidity. Last year, we have also seen, to our present surprise, strong sales at Lakeville VI. Later on, Jessica will give you more information on this.
Our quality commercial portfolio is still generating increases for us. The China property market is undergoing a structural correction. I think after the past two and three years of correction, I think we are coming to the bottom. There are two factors that will continue to impact on the property market. One is the uncertainty facing the world with Trump's tariff policy. It could drive the world into a recession. The other thing is the indebted developers. How will they deal with their debt issues? There are still uncertainties faced by corporations and individuals. Particularly, the financing market is still not back to normal. I think mainland banks are focused on making sure that the developers will deliver their flats. Foreign banks, I think, are all very cautious on the China property market.
Shanghai's high-end residential market continues to perform well. Jessica will give you more details on that. We will continue to prioritize on our asset light strategy going forward. Let me stop there, and my colleagues will give you more information.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Hi, everyone. This is Stephanie. Thanks for joining our analyst briefing. As the Chairman already shared a little bit more about our profit in 2024, I will not repeat that. Here, I would just like to highlight a couple of initiatives in 2024. Firstly, the successful sales launch of Lakeville VI in Shanghai Xintiandi was a very pleasant and happy surprise for all of us. This is naturally based on years of work, decades of building up our Lakeville brand in Shanghai. We sold the first phase of Lakeville VI. There were 108 units that were sold through in one day. This delivered a contract sales of basically close to RMB 12 billion in one day. This set a new ceiling for sales in Shanghai. Secondly, we are going to expand our urban retreat community.
We have confirmed that we will proceed and commence construction of our Zhaojialou project by phase starting this year. Secondly, we've also signed two large-scale mixed-use development community management contracts in Shanghai, namely Yongnianli, behind Lakeville VI in Shanghai, as well as Fengxian Nanqiao, expanding our asset-light strategy and maintaining very prudent capital management. From a commercial portfolio point of view, our commercial portfolio yielded very solid rental growth. Our total rental and related income increased by 9% year on year, despite the market downturn and decrease in consumption sentiment. This was supported largely by additional contributions by our new projects opened in 2023, Panlong Tiandi as well as Hongshou Fang in Shanghai. These actually represent a very new and very differentiated, more lifestyle-driven and experiential-driven type of retail project that we are very confident about.
Lastly, about prudent capital management, this has always been the same tone for us in the past several years. We have fully repaid the $493.5 million senior notes in August 2024, as well as the $490 million senior notes due this year on the 3rd of March. Our net debt ratio remains very stable at 52%. Our cash and bank deposits totaled RMB 7.7 billion. As of the 27th of March, as the Chairman mentioned, we have repaid a total of RMB 45.2 billion of offshore debts. This has been a very big effort by the management team to ensure the strong liquidity of the company and maintaining very prudent capital management. Secondly, just a few quick highlights on sustainability. Despite the market downturn, we continue to push forward on our sustainability efforts towards our 2030 goals.
We achieved a 51.3% reduction in scope one and two carbon emissions intensity and a 23.3% reduction in tenant emissions, which are scope three emissions from the 2019 base year. Shanghai Taipingqiao 's community has transitioned to 100% renewable electricity since July 1 last year. This is the first commercial complex and district in Shanghai to do so, paving the way for us to fully achieve a net zero district and community in Shanghai's city center. Also worth mentioning is that we've received high recognition for sustainability efforts in the Climate Leadership Award from CDP and inclusion on the Fortune China ESG Impact List. Just a few words about the continuing market challenges. Naturally, 2024 was an extremely challenging year.
China's residential market downturn continued to persist, but the rate of decline has slowed in the second half, and I think largely due to many supportive measures announced by the central government that were shoring up confidence. In recent days, actually, you've seen many successful land bids, land sold at premium, whether in Shanghai or Hangzhou. You can see the market confidence slowly building up. Specifically, in Shanghai's high-end luxury market in residential, that market continues to outperform and has strong demand. Versus 2023, the high-end transactions increased by 150% year on year. That is actually a very encouraging signal and lots of opportunities for a company and brand like ours. From a retail perspective, because the consumer confidence has been quite dampened, consumption, I think, is shifting, actually. We're seeing some new trends in consumer consumption spend.
A lot more spend is occurring on more experiential-based and sports kind of culture and leisure-based experiences. For us, projects like Panlong Tiandi and Hongshou Fang, where we can integrate cultural heritage as well as natural heritage into one large project where you can come and play, you can do sports, you can experience art museums, like these types of projects, we really think are green shoots going forward and is a new type of consumer spending pattern. From an office perspective, this continues to be somewhat of the perfect storm. There is still a very large supply overhang paired with a paring back of demand because of the macroeconomic environment. From that point of view, we continue to see very strong downward pressure on our office portfolio. Having said that, looking forward, as I mentioned earlier, we are undertaking some large-scale new asset-light projects.
I think this will be a new way of operation for us where we can land bank and continue to enlarge our portfolio without putting huge pressure on our financial balance sheet. From that point of view, we will continue to expand our Xintiandi communities as well as our Lakeville brand and leverage this brand upside in the market upswing going forward. With that, I'll hand over to Douglas.
Thank you, Stephanie. Let me just run through our 2024 financial results quickly. Here on this page, you can see the key KPIs: revenue RMB 8.1 billion, net profit RMB 810 million. Property sales is on the consolidated level, RMB 4.3 billion. Our total rental income, including the JVs and associates, was RMB 3.54 billion. Profit attributable to shareholders is RMB 180 million. As the Chairman mentioned, our board recommends to pay a final dividend of HKD 0.036 per share. A couple of points here. One is on the decline in revenue and profit is primarily driven by a lower level of residential completion and handover in 2024 compared to 2023. Secondly, on the rental income side, we actually had a very, very strong performing year last year. I'm sure Allan will talk a little bit more later on.
If we include all our projects under management, including the JVs and associate investments, we recorded a 9% year-on-year increase on rentals. We think that was a very, very strong year last year despite the challenge in the commercial market. On the P&L next page, I won't go through the order line items, just a few highlights. Overall revenue RMB 8.1 billion, we already discussed, including property sales, rental income. Rental income on just the consolidated level was RMB 2.45 billion. Gross profit RMB 5.2 billion with a GP margin of 64%, which was higher than 2023, mainly because the composition of the revenue was more driven by rental last year compared to 2023. Other income was generally interest income. The expenses, operating expenses were all quite typical and in line with prior year's amounts. I'll talk a little bit more about IP valuation.
Overall, we had a RMB 200 million decrease in the valuation of our portfolio. I think the other line items are pretty straightforward. On finance costs, overall is RMB 2 billion, 6% year-on-year reduction. If we exclude the net exchange loss, the net interest cost was only RMB 1.9 billion, which was about a 10% decline from the prior year. In the footnote, you can see that our average cost of debt actually came down quite a bit in 2024, average of 4.9% excluding fees and costs compared to 5.7% in 2023. We did have quite a bit of cost savings on the overall financing, mainly because we repaid a lot of more expensive offshore debt and replaced with onshore financing. Next page. Property before tax is RMB 3.15 billion, and after tax is RMB 810 million. Attributable to shareholders is RMB 180 million.
Next page. On the balance sheet matrix, just a few key things. Total asset is about RMB 92 billion with total debt of roughly about RMB 30 billion. We had cash on hand of about RMB 7.7 billion. Our net debt is just over RMB 22 billion last year, which was slightly down from 2023 while maintaining the gearing ratio of 52%. Next page. You can see the total asset at RMB 92 billion at the end of last year. You will see that it has declined a little bit more from the year before. This is primarily because of the consolidation of the KIC Project, which we completed at the end of last year. It is no longer accounted in, we no longer consolidate that project, which had a value of about RMB 8.5 billion. Our share of that project is about 46%.
That accounts for a lot of the decline in total assets. If we look at the overall book value of our net asset of the company, it was quite stable. In 2023, the book value was about RMB 44 billion. At the end of last year, it's about RMB 42.6 billion. Overall, it did not have a lot of impact on the NAV of the company. Next page. On the IP valuation, you can see the grand total at the bottom of the table is the total value of our portfolio is just over RMB 100 billion. The company's share is about RMB 63 billion, RMB 62.5 billion. That represented a 0.6% decline year on year. If you look through the list, you will see both increase and decrease in the fair value of the individual properties.
Most of the more notable decrease last year was due to a larger component of office space in that project due to the pressure in the office market. We also had some pretty decent increase in valuation, such as Panlong Tiandi and Hongshou Fang, because of the strong performance of these two newly opened projects, which Allen will highlight later on. Next page. This is just graphically showing you the net gearing and net debt change over the years. I wanted to just highlight on the lower chart the net debt. At the end of last year, we were at RMB 22 billion, which basically brings us back to the level at 2020 before the crisis hit the China property sector.
Despite all the volatility and liquidity pressure we have witnessed in the past three and a half years, it actually did not have a material impact to the overall debt on the company. We thought that was a point well note. Next page. As the Chairman and Stephanie mentioned, obviously, we all know that last few years were extremely challenging for the China property industry, including for Shui On Land. I am happy to say that we have actually successfully steered past our company's debt maturity war. You can see on the chart on the left-hand side that going forward, the rest of 2025 and 2026, 2027, our debt maturity will progressively become less and less compared to the last couple of years. Out of the RMB 8.3 billion of debt maturity this year in 2025, we already repaid about 70%, about RMB 5.6 billion.
What is remaining is not significant. On the right-hand side chart, we refer to the breakdown between first half and second half. Out of the RMB 7 billion first half maturity, we already repaid RMB 5.6 billion. It is about 80% of first half of maturity. We think that we do have a bit of breathing room in the coming six to nine months at least, given that the overall maturity is relatively light and we should have a good handle on our liquidity in the near future. Next page. Overall, let me just close by saying, of course, management's focus has been very prudently managing our capital structure and our liquidity in the last few years. That will continue to be the case.
I think of note, on the chart in the lower right-hand side, you will see that we have successfully reduced our reliance on offshore financing quite a bit. At the end of last year, our FX debt ratio is about 38% of total debt. After the repayment of our March bond this year, that ratio will come down to below 30%. A vast majority of our financing now is onshore. Hopefully that will protect us from a lot of the volatility we have witnessed in the offshore market in the future. With that, I'll hand over to Jessica on the residential sector.
Okay, thanks, Douglas. I'm glad to share our latest update on property sales and development. Our counter sales for 2024 have increased by 32%, reaching RMB 15.055 billion. This figure includes residential property sales of RMB 14.55 billion and commercial property sales of RMB 502 million. The standout performer, as mentioned by Stephanie, Lakeville VI was launched just last September. All of 108 units of its super high-rise tower were sold out on launching day, generating nearly RMB 12 billion in counter sales, setting a new record for Shanghai's residential market with an average selling price of RMB 210,200 per square meter. In addition to our counter sales, we've also secured RMB 795 million in subscribed sales, which we expect to convert to counter sales in the coming months. Overall, we've locked in total sales of RMB 15.394 billion, ready for delivery to customers and recognition in 2025 and beyond. Next.
Looking ahead, we have about 176,300 square meters of residential GFA available for sale and pre-sale in 2025 and beyond. This includes villas and townhouses in Lakeville VI, Riverview, and other three residential projects in Wuhan. Next. Now, let's take a look at our existing residential development land bank and the future sellable resources. By the end of 2024, our total sellable amount stands at RMB 15.2 billion, with an attributable value of RMB 26.9 billion. Notably, RMB 11 billion of these sellable resources are located in Shanghai, while RMB 14.2 billion are primarily in Wuhan. Next. This is not all. Our commercial development portfolio is also thriving in high-growth cities, which will drive further rental growth in the future. The total GFA of our commercial property portfolio is 1.95 million square meters, with 15.4% for office use and 46% for retail. Next.
Now, let me share with you about our market observation and the development strategy. Firstly, we are seeing some encouraging signals from the recent two sessions regarding the property sector. The latest government work report emphasized stabilization that declined by easing restrictions and accelerating urban regeneration to boost real estate demand. While it may take time for these effects to fully materialize, they are certainly positive signs for market stabilization. Second, although the national real estate market continues to contract, top-tier cities are showing early signs of recovery. By late 2024, first-tier cities began to rebound, with home pricing turning positive month on month in November and the second-tier cities following in December. This trend points to a broader market stabilization. Shanghai's residential market, in particular, remains resilient and is bouncing back with supportive policies.
The September 27 policy had a significant impact, leading to steady growth in new home sales since last October. The second-hand market is particularly hot, with monthly sales exceeding 20,000 units from October to December 2024. This resurgence is even influencing the land market, while two prime lot plots recently sold for over 30% premiums above their starting price. Next. Sorry. Go back. Given these trends, our strategy is three-fold. First, we will continue to focus on top-tier cities. We will prioritize opportunities in Shanghai, selectively capturing the best prospects. Secondly, we will continue with our best-in-class product strategy. Leveraging our Xintiandi community and the Lakeville brand, we will strengthen our competitiveness and brand influence in the middle to high-end segment. Third, we will continue to pursue an asset-light strategy until the market correction is completed.
We will innovate our business model, expand external capital, and form strategic partnerships to drive sustainable growth. We are confident this approach will allow us to capitalize on evolving market conditions and maintain our competitive edge. Next. Now, let's take a closer look at Shanghai's high-end residential market. In 2024, luxury new home sales in Shanghai nearly doubled. The high-end housing market experienced a robust supply and active transactions. As illustrated in the chart below, sales of units priced above RMB 30 million surged, with over 2,500 units sold, accounting for more than 60% of the national market. This surge was driven by increased supply and a strong demand from high-net-worth individuals. Following the September 27 policy, further easing measures have boosted consumers' confidence. High-end residential projects in core areas of first-tier cities have seen overwhelming responses, recording significant sales growth in 2024.
Nationwide, sales of high-end homes priced above RMB 30 million in the four first-tier cities increased by 70% year on year. Next. As I mentioned earlier, the Shanghai property market is demonstrating stable demand and resilience, even in the face of a broader market downturn. Notably, the sales of our Lakeville VI super high-rise have set a remarkable record in Shanghai. Looking ahead, we are excited about the next phase of Lakeville VI, which is set to launch in late 2025. This upcoming release will feature 36 low-density heritage-inspired villas and townhouses. Many of our loyal customers are eagerly anticipating this project, and we expect it to perform exceptionally well, contributing significantly to our sales revenue. We anticipate completing construction for the whole project in Q2 2027, with handovers beginning in Q4 2027.
In addition, Riverview stands out as another high-end low-density residential offering that we plan to promote steadily in 2025. Located on the left bank of Huangpu River in the Yangpu Riverside Zone, Riverview showcases heritage preservation through its villas and townhouses, beautifully integrating the Lakeville brand with the precious natural resources of the riverfront. This project will help extend the reach of the Lakeville brand into broader markets. We expect to complete the construction in Q3 this year, with handovers starting in Q4 this year. Given the current market environment, we will adopt a prudent approach to expanding our business, maintaining our focus on first-tier cities, especially in Shanghai. Zhao jialou is another exciting urban retreat project following the success of Panlong Tiandi, located in Minhang District, Shanghai. This urban village renovation project is a partnership between Shui On Land and the local government.
Here, we are leveraging our expertise in urban regeneration, cultural preservation, and community operation to create a vibrant destination that blends cultural heritage with modern living. The project has an estimated GFA of 223,000 square meters, with 150,000 square meters of residential and 73,000 square meters of commercial and cultural. We target to complete the construction and start to operate the project in the second half of 2030. Next. The Lakeville brand's strong reputation and successes, like Panlong Tiandi and Hongshou Fang, have attracted different kinds of partners to collaborate with us on SLI projects. This presents us with opportunities to showcase our expertise in urban regeneration and community operation. Looking ahead, the SLI model will be a key driver of our business development. In 2024, we entered into two new partnerships as part of this strategy.
One is a high-end residential project under the Lakeville brand in the Shanghai Xintiandi community, collaborating with Yongye Group with an estimated 105,000 square meters of residential space and 15,000 square meters of commercial area. The other project is an urban village renovation project in partnership with Shanghai Minhang District Government, which is a mixed-use community with about 326,000 square meters of residential space and 94,600 square meters of commercial area and other facilities. This project was started in January this year. In both cases, our group will provide professional management for development, sales, and marketing, asset management, and operation. Thank you for your attention. Now I'll hand it over to Allen.
Thank you, Jessica. Good evening, everyone. In this section, I will quickly brief the performance of our commercial sectors. My first slide, it's about our portfolio. We have been focused on investing in the high-potential gateway CTC, especially in Shanghai. With the newly adding of our CPIC Xintiandi Commercial Center, our commercial assets located in prime locations in Shanghai already reached RMB 79 billion. We believe that the scale of this portfolio gives us a very unique position to leverage on our brand, our strength, and our resources to achieve sustainable growth. My next slide, it's a little bit more about the growth. The total rental and related income of our commercial property increased by 9% to RMB 3.5 billion last year. Most of the income growth is from the retail and office sectors.
Thanks to every colleague's effort and contribution, our average occupancy rate remained very stable at 94% at the end of last year. Also, our overall sales and shopper traffic increased by 9% and 12%, respectively. As mentioned before, our recently opened Panlong Tiandi and Hongshou Fang have been maintained at a very stable and successful open, which contributes a lot in terms of our rental growth. For the office sectors, our average occupancy rate remained above 90%, which is very helpful for us to keep attracting good talents. Also, in the last year, we have been focused on a very refined office leasing strategy to allow us to focus on the big talents through providing high-quality services in our office portfolios. My next slide is about the two recently opened projects I just mentioned, Panlong Tiandi and Hongshou Fang.
These two projects are the best showcase of Xintiandi's reputation of creating new social landmarks. Panlong Tiandi has been maintained at a very strong growth and very healthy operation. In the last year, we received more than 18 million for traffic and also a lot of recognition from the media and from third-party authorities last year. Hongshou Fang, even though it is a very small project, we have successfully achieved the reputation of the unique positioning, especially in the ideal neighborhoods with a very refined atmosphere. We also received more than 12.4 million traffic for in the last year and also recognition from the media and third-party authorities. Next slide, it is about the office sector. I think we all know that office has been very, very competitive and challenging market sectors.
Unlike most of the homogeneous products in the market, we initiated our breakthrough in the software services. Starting from three years ago, we already successfully launched our holistic offer, which means a package of different services in different stages of our office journey. We launched very hybrid solutions for both the companies and also the individual workers, plus very customized office-ready solutions and sustainable solutions for our office tenants. All of these breakthroughs in the software services have been proven very successful and allow us to keep attracting reputable tenants. In last year, we successfully signed more than 230,000 square meters new lease, among which we have more than 90 tenants, big tenants, meaning that they rented more than 2,000 square meters office spaces. The next slide is about the pipeline project, CPIC Xintiandi Commercial Center, which is located in the Xintiandi area.
The overall position is about the commercial complex with three office towers, plus a street-style all-weather shopping and leisure and entertainment area. The total area for the office is a little bit above 190,000 square meters. The retail portion is 81,000 square meters. So far, we have completed the construction for all of this project, and we launched the first tower, Tower 3, in 2003. Right now, the occupancy rate for this Tower 3, it's 100%. Tower 2 was completed in 2024. Right now, I think the occupancy rate leads with anchored tenants was already 80% at the end of last year. Right now, we are focusing on the T1 and also the retail portion, which aim to be open for operation in this year. My last slide is about our strategic initiative for this year and going forward.
We will continue to strengthen our three growth engines to achieve sustainable and profitable growth goals. Among all of the three engines, we will keep driving our steady and organic growth in the assets under management. We will try to strive for every successful open for the new pipeline projects. At the same time, we will continue to expand our pipeline through asset-light strategy 2.0, as mentioned by Jessica before. In the retail sectors, after a whole year's fighting for the occupancy rate, at the end of last year, our occupancy rate was already 94%. This year, we will focus on driving the traffic and also help our tenants to boost their sales. For the office sector, we will try to stick to the strategy for last year, occupancy rate as our first priority to keep pushing up our occupancy rate.
This is all.