Nomad eyes China, India expansion

KUALA LUMPUR: The Nomad Group Bhd is expanding its business of providing office space in emerging and developing economies with huge populations like China and India, to improve its earnings.

It is also looking at expansion into Indo-China and within its existing markets in Southeast Asia (SEA), said its chief executive officer Roy George. 

"We are open to joint ventures with the lo-cals, taking over existing operations, or setting up on our own from scratch. We are exploring opportunities in the respective regions now," Roy said. 

The Nomad has a total gross office space of 278,000sq ft for serviced offices in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila and it plans to increase that by 20 per cent a year, Roy said. 

He said it is also considering various property acquisitions for its hotels and services residences segment, both locally and regionally. 

He, however, declined to say how much it would spend on its business expansion plan. 

Currently, the group has two hotels and a serviced residence in Kuala Lumpur. 

"Our approach is to acquire existing hotels in business but we are open to other possibilities," Roy said yesterday, after inking a deal with TGS Enterprise Networks Sdn Bhd to help consolidate and streamline its communication system. 

On earnings, Roy expects it to be slightly affected this year as it has invested in new office space. 

"The gestation period is usually around six to nine months before the investment shows results. We expect better performance from 2013 onwards," he said. 

For fiscal 2011, The Nomad registered a pre-tax profit of RM7.7 million on a revenue of RM76.9 million. 

On the deal with TGS, the latter will manage and improve The Nomad's services offices' communication infrastructure using Siemens' IP telephony technology. 

The plan includes centralising its server to one location. 

Roy said by migrating to a single integrated platform, maintenance will be simplified and cost will be reduced significantly.

By Business Times Online

Source: http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/NOMAD12/Article/#ixzz20Tv3mL78