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Profit Vanishes! What Hit OneApex In FY2025? · Investor Exchange

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  Time for another Investor Exchange podcast. Here are your hosts, Matt and Sally.
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  Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are strapping ourselves in for a look
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  at a set of financial results that are really just defined by contrast.
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  Our sources are the official financial statements and announcements from One
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  Apex Limited for their full financial year 2025.
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  Our mission is to get behind some pretty frightening headline numbers.
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  One Apex is now focused almost entirely on property development, investment, all that.
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  And they just finished exiting their financial services arm.
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  So we're diving into their main business.
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  We need to figure out what happened and why this massive year-on-year change
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  is maybe less a story of collapse and more about timing. It's all about the timing.
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  That contrast is the entire story here. I mean, when you put FY 2024 and FY
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  2025 side-by-side, you're looking at two completely different realities.
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  Last year, the group had a really substantial net profit of about $15.1 million.
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  This year... A complete flip. A complete flip. They recorded a net loss of $1.3 million.
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  And if you're trying to understand that swing from a $15 million profit to a
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  $1.3 million loss, you have to realize it wasn't some kind of operational failure.
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  It was all a matter of when one huge project hit the books.
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  Okay. Let's start with those stark numbers because they are...
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  Genuinely challenging to look at in isolation. Looking just at the property
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  business, their continuing operations, the revenue collapse is nearly total. It's incredible.
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  Revenue fell from about $76.3 million in FY 2024 to an almost negligible feed $0.1 million in FY 2025.
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  I mean, it's not just a slow quarter. No, a drop from $76 million to,
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  what, $100,000, that's almost unheard of.
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  If you didn't know their business model, you'd assume they'd just cease trading.
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  And when you translate that for the shareholder, you know, in their pocket,
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  the earnings per share tells a very clear, painful story.
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  What's that? It fell from a highly positive 9.25 cents in 2024 to a loss of
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  negative 1.53 cents in 2025.
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  That's probably the clearest measure you can get of the profitability change.
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  And the balance sheet reflects this too, right? It's not just the income statement.
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  It's the foundational value of the company itself. Exactly.
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  The net asset value, the NAV per share, which is sort of the ultimate measure
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  of what the company's actually worth, that dropped significantly.
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  How much are we talking? It fell from almost 20 Singapore cents in 2024 down
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  to just 8.93 cents in 2025.
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  Wow. And that is a crucial data point. It shows that the big success of FY 2024
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  was immediately paid out, leaving the NAV much lower.
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  This gives you the context for why management is now talking so much about retaining
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  cash. They have to rebuild that base.
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  Okay, let's unpack the mechanics of this. That S$76.2 million revenue decline.
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  That isn't just a slow day at the office.
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  What actually caused it? The
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  short answer is the timing of property development revenue recognition.
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  That really impressive $76.2 million they booked in FY 2024,
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  that wasn't earned smoothly over the year.
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  It was basically recognized all at once from one key project, Apex Foodworks.
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  OK, I want to pause on that. The source material mentions something called the
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  Temporary Occupation Permit, or T.O.P. For people who don't follow Singapore's
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  property market, why is that the magic moment the money hits the books?
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  That's the crucial detail here.
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  A lot of developers use what's called the completion method of accounting.
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  So you might sell units years in advance, but you can't actually recognize the
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  revenue until you hit a major regulatory milestone.
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  And the T.O.P. is that milestone. The T.O.P. is that milestone.
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  It means the building is done. It's safe. It's ready for people to move in.
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  Until that point in May 2024, all that money was just sitting on the balance sheet.
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  Then, boom. So in FY 2024, they get the T.O.P.
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  And all the sales for Apex Foodworks hit the books instantly.
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  That's your S. 76 million dollars.
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  Exactly. And crucially, the costs associated with it, the S.
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  58.8 million dollar cost of property sold were also recognized at the same time.
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  That's what created that big S. 15 million dollar profit. So if 2024 was the
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  big event, 2025 was just the quiet after. Precisely.
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  FY 2025 had almost no property sales revenue to recognize.
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  That's why the figure dropped to $0.1 million, which is mostly just recurring
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  stuff like management fees.
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  The whole swing is basically an accounting artifact.
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  And here's where it gets really interesting, because it wasn't just the property
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  revenue that disappeared.
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  A few other one-off gains from 2024 also vanished, which made the gap even wider.
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  Yes, it was a compounded effect.
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  First, other income dropped by S1.3 million dollars.
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  And that was largely because in 2024 they had a one-off S1.4 million dollar
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  gain from selling an associated company.
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  That was the Tuis C-Town Dormitory, or TSD.
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  Right. They cashed out, which is great, but you can only cash out once.
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  That gain doesn't repeat. And that sale had another effect, too. It did.
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  The share of Associates' results dropped by about $68 million.
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  Since they sold TSD, well, they didn't get a share of its profits in FY 2025.
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  So you have the big project closing out, plus these other successful one-offs
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  disappearing. It's a real double whammy. But turning to the cost side...
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  There were some small cushions that softened the blow a little bit.
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  A little bit, yeah. Employee benefits expense actually decreased by sub-$0.6 million.
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  The reason is pretty clear in the report. In FY 2024, they paid out a big one-time
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  staff bonus because performance was so good.
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  That bonus was, understandably, not there in FY 2025.
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  Right. It really shows you who carries the risk in a project-based business.
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  And of course, the tax bill also reflected the reversal.
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  That makes sense. Sure. The income tax expense just plummeted from $2.5 million
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  down to basically nothing, just $0.01 million.
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  No major profit, no major tax. Now let's talk liquidity, because this is where
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  the puzzle gets a little intriguing.
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  Total assets went down and cash went down by $7.9 million.
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  If the net loss was only $1.3 million, why did the cash drop so much more?
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  It feels a bit counterintuitive. This is where we have to connect the 2025 loss
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  back to the 2024 profit. It's a bit of a lag effect.
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  So even with the loss this year, the group did generate S2.6 million dollars
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  in cash from its operations, but that itself was a huge drop from the S25.6
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  million dollars generated in
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  2024 when all the cash from Apex Foodworks actually hit the bank account.
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  Okay, so what drove the big 7.9 million dollar decrease then?
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  It was driven by them paying for the success of the prior year.
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  They had major financing outflows. Such as?
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  Well, first, a massive 8.0 million dollars was paid out in dividends,
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  final, and special dividends from those FY 2024 profits. Okay.
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  Then they paid about S2.5 million dollars in income taxes that were owed from the 2024 profits.
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  And finally, there was another S2.1 million dollar cash outflow from a subsidiary's
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  capital reduction exercise.
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  So they're paying out S8 million dollars in dividends from last year's success
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  in a year where they're actually losing money. What does that signal?
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  It signals a commitment to immediate shareholder returns after a landmark project.
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  But it's a very aggressive payout that, as we saw, drained the NAV.
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  It was a one-time reward.
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  But it means management now has to be laser-focused on generating new value
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  because that cash is gone.
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  And we should briefly touch on the discontinued operations. They finalized the
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  sale of their financial services segment in February 2025.
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  Yeah, that was a successful exit. It really simplifies the business down to a pure property play.
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  The sale itself didn't have a huge financial impact, a tiny loss before the
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  sale, and a tiny gain on the sale itself. So its significance is more strategic
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  than financial. Exactly. It gives them clarity.
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  One Apex is now a property company. Full stop. So despite all these massive
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  cash outflows, dividends, taxes, where does that leave the group now?
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  What's their financial strength look like?
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  Despite that cash decrease, the balance sheet is stable.
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  The key metric you want to look at now is their working capital,
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  which is positive. It stands at about $8.7 million.
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  And that $8.7 million is essentially their war chest for what comes next.
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  It's their operational buffer and their starting capital for the next finish of growth. Exactly.
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  So what does this all mean for the future? The big project is done.
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  They need a new growth driver.
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  What's the plan for the next 12 months, especially with that S8.7 million dollar buffer?
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  The plan is very focused. The immediate goal is tactical.
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  Apex FoodWorks has one single unit left to sell out of 24.
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  So the immediate focus is just to sell that last unit. Which is a small final
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  revenue bump, but it's clearly not the future engine of growth. Absolutely not.
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  The real story is the strategic goal. The group says they're going to be proactive,
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  monitoring the property market for new acquisition or investment opportunities.
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  So they're on the hunt. They're on the hunt. They specifically say they'll participate
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  in commercial land tenders when the right opportunities come up.
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  They're looking for the next apex food works.
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  And they did give a little context on the macro environment they're hunting
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  in. They did. Just a dose of reality.
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  They noted the Singapore economy's growth was moderating to about 2.9 percent.
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  So they can't just rely on a roaring economy to make any project a success.
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  They have to pick their next move very carefully.
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  And finally, on shareholder returns, no dividend for FY 2025.
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  That's the clearest signal you could get about the shift in strategy.
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  It's the strongest signal they could send. And the reason is transparent.
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  It ties directly back to everything we've been talking about.
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  The loss, the reduced NAV, and the need for cash.
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  The report says the decision was made to retain cash for future growth and their acquisition strategy.
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  They learned the lesson from paying out that S8 million dollars.
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  Now they need a strategic reserve. So holding back a dividend to keep that S8.7
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  million dollars shows they're serious about a new acquisition.
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  It does. They're trading that short-term shareholder satisfaction for long-term project viability.
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  The big question is what kind of opportunity justifies holding onto that cash.
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  Given their success, they're likely targeting similar high-yield commercial or industrial land.
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  That S8.7 million dollars is the down payment on the next big revenue spike.
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  So to summarize the key takeaway for you, the listener, one Apex's performance
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  this year wasn't really a business breaking down.
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  Not at all. It was just a sharp, dramatic reminder of how cyclical project-based revenue is.
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  Their massive profit in 2024 came from one event, the completion of Apex Foodworks.
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  FY 2025 was the transition period. They paid their bills from that success,
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  they streamlined the business, and they held on to a modest liquidity buffer.
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  Now they're a clean, property-focused company waiting for the next opportunity.
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  And that liquidity buffer, that S8.7 million dollars in working capital,
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  is the central question now.
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  The group specifically said they need to retain cash for acquisitions.
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  With only one small unit left to sell, they have effectively zero property development
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  revenue in the pipeline. So how quickly do they need to move on a new land tender
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  or acquisition before investor patient starts to run out?
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  What specific kind of opportunity in terms of size, location,
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  and capital would justify them spending that S8.7 million dollars?
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  That decision, whenever it's announced, will tell you everything you need to
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  know about the scale of their ambition for the next cycle.