Good afternoon. Thank you for joining Kerry Properties 2024 Annual Results Analyst Briefing. A warm welcome to the audience here at Kerry Center, as well as those on the webcast. We have with us today Mr. Kuok Khoon Hua, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Ms. Suzanne Cheng, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin with a presentation by Mr. Kuok, followed by a presentation by Ms. Cheng. After that, we will take questions from the floor. I would now like to invite Mr. Kuok to give a few remarks on our 2024 performance and share his insights on the outlook. Mr. Kuok, please.
Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our 2024 Annual Results Briefing. In Hong Kong, the property market remains subdued, with property prices dropping by 7% and existing a significant overhang of completed inventory. Home buyers remain cautious, while consumption continued to be weak due to changing consumer habits. In the Mainland, persistently low business and consumer confidence continued to weigh heavily on the market. We see a trend of consumption downgrading while corporates focus on cost control and consolidating their rental footprints. We feel fortunate that our development properties in Hong Kong sold well during the year. We successfully sold 27 units at Mont Verra, generating over HKD 8.5 billion of contracted sales, which will feed into our cash flow over the coming two years. In terms of investment properties, we are facing challenges in the office sector in Hong Kong and the Mainland.
For retail, we have made efforts to upgrade our positioning, raise awareness of our malls, and optimize tenant mix to improve retail sales and footfall. Overall performance was steady. However, we expect the market, particularly for office, to become even more challenging in 2025. Against this backdrop, we are taking a more conservative approach in marking down the value of our development and investment properties. As a result, our profit after tax was HKD 808 million, a decline of 75% year-over-year. After adjusting for the impact of exceptional items, our underlying profit rose by 25% year-on-year to about HKD 4 billion. This growth was driven by higher revenue from development properties. The board has recommended a final dividend of HKD 0.95 per share, the same as last year. For the full year, the total dividend per share remains unchanged at HKD 1.35.
Looking further ahead, we remain positive about the Mainland's long-term growth prospects, driven by the structural growth of Mainland cities, as well as the emerging consumption power of the middle class and the advancement of industries and innovation to globally competitive levels. We also remain positive about Hong Kong's long-term prospects as China's most international city and the sole financial gateway between Mainland and the world. However, over the shorter term, there is very low visibility on when business and consumer confidence will recover meaningfully and sustainably in both Hong Kong and the Mainland. Trade tensions and geopolitical headwinds continue to create great uncertainties, while U.S. interest rates are expected to remain high in the foreseeable future. As mentioned during our interim results announcement, we continue to maintain a conservative stance, focusing on deleveraging our balance sheet and delivering stable dividends.
In 2025, up to March 18, which is yesterday, we successfully launched two projects in Hong Kong. We relaunched La Montagne in Wong Chuk Hang, that's Package 4, where we pre-sold 128 units with contracted sales of over HKD 800 million. Additionally, this year we also launched HAVA in Yuen Long, where we pre-sold over 430 units with contracted sales of over HKD 1.8 billion. We expect these two projects to be handed over in the second half of this year. In Shanghai, we obtained the pre-sale permit for the first batch of units at our Jinling Residences in middle March. We saw good interest coming from high-net-worth prospective buyers with an oversubscription ratio of around 2 x and at an average selling price of CNY 189,000 per square meter. These pre-sales in 2025 will bring in revenue and cash flow over the next two years.
In terms of the performance of our development properties, there are a couple of points to highlight. In 2024, we achieved contracted sales of HKD 12.6 billion. Of this, 80%, or HKD 10.1 billion, was generated from Hong Kong, with Mont Verra being the major contributor. The remainder came from The Aster in Happy Valley and La Marina, Package 2 of Wong Chuk Hang. In the Mainland, our contracted sales was HKD 2.5 billion, mainly driven by projects in the second and third-tier cities, such as Shenyang and Wuhan. Our DP projects under development total around 9 million sq ft of GFA and will span over the next five years. We have around 10 million sq ft of salable resources, with 80% coming from the Mainland and 20% from Hong Kong. Most of these projects are projects under development.
In the Mainland, our sales focus for this year is the Shanghai Jinling Residences. Our subscription, as mentioned, for the first batch started last week, and we expect contract sales of the first batch to be confirmed by the end of this month. We plan to launch the second batch of residential apartments in the same project towards quarter 4 of this year. Additionally, we have several other projects that are currently selling. The commercial apartments in Qianhai, as well as Wuhan River Mansion and Shenyang The Arcadia. In Hong Kong, our pipeline includes the remaining units at Mont Verra, HAVA in Yuen Long, and continued sales at La Marina and La Montagne in Wong Chuk Hang. Looking ahead, we have in the pipeline projects in LOHAS Park in Tseung Kwan O, To Kwa Wan, Tsuen Wan, and the second phase of our Yuen Long project.
I will now hand over to Suzanne, who will discuss our operational performance, financial highlights, and sustainability updates. Thank you.
Thank you, Hua. Let me go through the operation details of KPL during the year of 2024. DP combined revenue was HKD 13.8 billion, an increase of 33%. Mainland revenue reached HKD 7.4 billion, more than doubling of that last year, mainly driven by the projects in Hangzhou, Shenyang, and Qinhuangdao. In Hong Kong, revenue was HKD 6.4 billion, with the majority recognized in the second half as more Mont Verra units were handed over to buyers. Our overall gross margin declined to 16% from last year of 30%, mainly due to a different product mix. In 2024, the margin in Hong Kong was higher than that in the Mainland. Our 2024 contracted sales yet to be recognized amount to around HKD 10 billion, all of which is expected to book in 2025. This is mainly contributed by Mont Verra and our JV project in Shanghai, Pudong.
Combined rental revenue from our Mainland investment properties decreased by 3% in Hong Kong dollar terms, mainly due to renminbi depreciation. If we looked at in renminbi terms, the decrease was 1%. The office segment continued to face meaningful headwinds, including an oversupply of new office spaces and also the tenant downsizing. As a result, office rent revenue fell by 4%. Overall, we managed to maintain occupancy stable at around 90%. The retail segment performed a bit better. Both tenant sales and foot traffic increased moderately. Retail revenue rose by 5% and occupancy edged up to 89%. The performance was due to a property upgrade and ongoing optimizing of tenant mix. The increase in retail revenue of 5% in the Mainland during 2024 can be partly attributed to our ongoing brand mix optimization.
Leveraging the quality and the prime location of our asset, we introduced new brand, flagship store, and even regional and national debuts in our shopping malls. We strive to provide a refreshing shopping experience for our visitor and tenant of our mixed-use development. In Hong Kong, combined rental revenue increased by 4%, mainly driven by higher revenue from apartment segment. Amid a challenging environment, the office segment experienced a 9% decrease in revenue. Our rent have had to adjust meaningfully to remain competitive, while our overall occupancy stood at 78%, down from 84% a year ago. Overall, our exposure to Hong Kong office market is relatively small, amounting for less than 5% of our group total recurring rental revenue. Retail revenue decreased by 4%, mainly due to partial refurbishment works at MegaBox, which impacts foot traffic.
However, tenant sales dropped around 10% year-on-year, reflecting weak consumer sentiment and a northbound consumption trend. The residential portfolio revenue increased by 1% on a like-for-like basis. This exclude the rental revenue from a certain DP unit which were and will be subsequently sold, as well as loss of rental income from the conversion of The Aster to DP and refurbishment of Branksome Place. Adding back all these exceptional items, apartment revenue increased by 24%. Occupancy rose to 95% from 89% a year ago. We have several IP and hotel projects currently under development in the Mainland. From 2025 to 2030 onwards, our IP and hotel footprint is expected to reach around 25 million sq ft and equates of over 60% from today. The major cities driving this growth including Shanghai, with project in Huangpu and Pudong, as well as Hangzhou, Wuhan, and Shenyang.
Now, let's discuss our financial and sustainability updates. In 2024, our combined revenue rose by 18% to around HKD 21 billion, mainly driven by 33% increase in the revenue recognition from property sales. Our recurring rental revenues remain stable. Our cash and bank deposits stood at HKD 11.2 billion, including undrawn facility of HKD 26.9 billion. Our capital resources reached HKD 38.1 billion, which is sufficient to cover approximately 64% of our total borrowings. Our net debt balance has increased to HKD 48.4 billion, up from HKD 41.3 billion a year ago, mainly due to the settlement of the last land payment of Shanghai Huangpu project. Accordingly, our gearing rates level edged up to 41.5%, which will remain below our previous guidance.
Going forward, we are targeting a reduction of gearing to mid 30% in two years' time as we begin to receive sales proceed from the Shanghai Jinling Residences, and also other projects in Hong Kong and Mainland. In 2024, our total finance cost rose by 4% from 2.6 billion- 2.7 billion. The increase was mainly due to the increased borrowing by 4.5 billion, while 2.3 billion of the interest was capitalized in our balance sheet. Upon the completion of various projects, we expect the capitalized portion to decrease, leading to a corresponding increase in the amount charged to the income statement. Our effective interest rate remains stable at 4.6%. About one third of our total borrowing will mature in the next two years, but we are well-covered by the undrawn facilities. Our overall debt maturity maintained more or less at same as 2.6 years.
Same as what we did in 2023, we continue to increase our exposure to CNY borrowings by refinancing Hong Kong dollar loan into CNY-denominated borrowings. At the end of 2024, the proportion of our CNY borrowing has increased to 33%, up to 18% a year ago. In the past two months, we have further increased our CNY exposure with current proportion at 36%. Additionally, we have swapped HKD 18.4 billion of our borrowings from floating to fixed, resulting a fixed debt proportion of 46%, increasing from 43% in 2023. Combining these action, Hong Kong dollar fixed rate borrowings together with the CNY fixed and floating borrowings account for 65% of our total gross borrowing at the end of 2024, which is higher than that of 55% in 2023. Over the year, we have taken meaningful steps to integrate sustainability practice into our operations.
We have recently set a midterm target for carbon reduction, aiming for 2% annual reduction in operation emissions every year from 2025 to 2030. During 2024, we made meaningful progress across several initiatives. We have piloted the biodiversity assessment in our projects in Shanghai and Hong Kong. We have also conducted a climate risk vulnerability assessment in all our investment properties. Additionally, we continue to obtain a new sustainable building certificate, reflecting our commitment to not only maintaining but accelerating our progress towards a more sustainable future. That's all for the operation and financial update for the year of 2024. Thank you