Group Lease Public Company Limited reported 1Q2019 net profit of 111.81 million baht, an increase of 5.0% compared to 1Q2018 as the Company incurred lower operating costs due to improves in efficiency

Mr. Alain Jean Pascal Dufes, Chief Financial Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, revealed that “the Company earned 111.81 million in 1Q2019 – an improvement of 5 million from last year. While revenue declined by 31 million or 4.4% compared to 1Q2018, we were able to offset this reduction by reducing our service and administration expense by 33 million or 10.1%. Our profitable result still included more than 19 million in legal expense, but this was also an improvement compared to first quarter last year when we spent 30 million.”

Mr. Tatsuya Konoshita, Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, stated that “based on the work we have done with the regulators, lawyers, and auditors, we are pleased to have a clean, unqualified opinion on our financial result from KPMG. Legally, we are still in litigation with one of our former partners and in Indonesia we recently got their claim against us dismissed. Another important legal matter we achieved was that we won the right to enforce our collateral of land in Brazil in regards to one of the disputed loan receivables that we set up an allowance for in 2017. In late 2017, we received a Deloitte valuation of that land in Brazil which had the value at roughly USD $30 million. We will continue to take action to receive repayment from the borrowers including enforcing the collateral if necessary as we have started to do. Also, profit from our Sri Lankan associate has increased two quarters in a row including a 62% increase compared to last quarter, so we are happy to see Sri Lanka start to improve as we expected.”

“Overall, we continue to improve our financial and legal standing. Our business is improving in profit and efficiency while at the same time achieving success in accounting and legal matters. We are optimistic about this year and we look forward to delivering more successes to our shareholders and employees”, Mr. Konoshita concluded.