Chairman's Message

DEAR SHAREHOLDERS

I am delighted to present to you the annual report for Heeton Holdings Limited for the financial year ended 31 December 2022 (“FY2022”).

BUSINESS OUTLOOK

The Group’s business broadly encompasses property investment, property development and hospitality. All sectors experienced significant setbacks during the worst phases of COVID-19, when the Company had to make difficult adjustments in order to adapt to the changing business landscape.  It is inevitable that some of these changes will be permanent, a legacy of the time we lived through.

Economic recovery began in the second half of 2022, and the outlook remains promising. The lifting of movement restrictions and the resumption of business and leisure travel have greatly enhanced hospitality businesses around the world, in particular China’s dismantling of their COVID-19 restrictions in December 2022 which has resulted in a strong upswing in travellers to and from the country. Heeton’s hotel division continues to report rising room rates and occupancies, with some of our UK hotels surpassing pre-COVID-19 numbers. In Japan, tourism has recovered strongly;  according to the Japanese National Tourism Organization, there were 3,831,900 foreign visitors to Japan in 2022, a fifteen-fold increase in 2021. The retail and residential component of Group’s Sapporo asset also performed strongly compared to last year.

Entering 2023, we believe that the Group is well positioned to take advantage of considerable growth opportunities. Heeton’s development of a 236- room hotel in the Sino-Singapore Health City Project  in Gaobeidian, Hebei, is progressing on schedule. The development of the Group’s 5-star hilltop hotel  in Paro, Bhutan is currently underway and will be one of the largest hospitality offerings in the country. We will continue to seek accretive hospitality acquisitions as and when the right  opportunities present themselves.

For the Singapore market, the Group has sought to maintain a strategic stance finely balanced between being conservative and pro-active. Heeton’s principal focus in Singapore remains on real estate development, management and investment, and its two retail malls, Tampines Mart and Sun Plaza, continue to perform to expectations as customer footfall returns to normal. The Tenet EC, a residential project in Singapore, is a joint development between the Group, Qingjian Realty, and Santarli Realty which was launched in December 2022. It has enjoyed strong sales, with more than 93% of units sold out within the first month of launch.

Going forward, the Group intends to maintain focus on its core competencies of residential development and property management but is also open to venturing into industrial developments, build-to-rent concepts, and even mixed or alternative accommodation projects.

NEW YEAR, NEW POSSIBILITIES

Although the global travel and hospitality industry has started to recover, the Group like many businesses is having to navigate a path through an uncertain and volatile macroeconomic  environment. To maintain stability, the Group has revamped its personnel and employment policies across its many international businesses, bringing in new, young blood in executive positions to provide fresh perspective and exciting ideas to help drive Heeton’s next chapter of growth and international expansion. The Group also moved from its base in the north of Singapore to its newly renovated corporate headquarters in Paya Lebar Square in March 2022, highlighting a fresh start in a post-COVID-19 business era.

As with many other companies the pandemic forced the Group to rethink its practices and come to terms with the need to evolve or risk being left behind. With support and encouragement from the Government to modernise and digitize, the Group has embraced new technology and operating systems in pursuit of greater efficiencies, ranging from the way it engages with customers through virtual showsuites and contactless hotel check-in to enhance guest experience, to the way data is collated, transmitted and stored.

Heeton will continue to explore new and innovative ways to harness up-and-coming technology to help grow the Group’s business. The focus will be on uncovering new markets and unlocking greater opportunities while maintaining strict budget controls and capital expenditure oversight.

IN APPRECIATION

First, I would like to thank all our staff at Heeton who have worked hard throughout 2022 to deliver a strong set of results for the Group.

I am also pleased to welcome Er Dr Lee Bee Wah and Mr Li Hiaw Ho as Non-Executive Independent Directors of the Board. Er Dr Lee Bee Wah holds the roles of the Chairman of Nominating Committee, member of the Audit Committee and member of the Remuneration Committee. Mr Li Hiaw Ho is a member of the Audit Committee and a member of the Remuneration Committee.

Lastly, I want to express my deep gratitude to all of our business partners for their unwavering trust and belief in Heeton, and our shareholders and other stakeholders for supporting the Group through an uncertain year.

TOH GIAP ENG

Executive Chairman