Crest Builders – can you wait for the turn around?

Bursa Crest Builders had a terrible decade with declining top line, bottom line and returns. From 2012 to 2018, the Group achieved an average ROE of 8%. From 2020 to 2023, the average ROE had declined to negative 11%.

This is obviously a company facing a turn around. The good signs are that its construction arm has a RM 2.2 billion order book as of 2022 and its property development arm has RM 2.2 billion gross development value of projects. And it is fianancial ok.

Its current losses are due to legacy projects and I think that it may take another 2 to 3 years to completely clean them. So while it is currently trading at less than half its book value, you will have to wait for the market to re-rate it.