According to a research report from Morgan Stanley, the performance of the mainland property management companies it covers for last year is generally expected to meet forecasts, with profit growth in the low single digits, but with increasing divergence. Among the covered companies, Greentown Service (02869) and China Resources Mixc Lifestyle Services (01209) are projected to achieve the highest profit growth (a year-on-year increase of 10% to 15%), followed by Poly Property Services (06049) and Centralcon Property Service (02669) (mid-single-digit growth). Sunac Services (01516) may still face a decline in core profit, impacted by issues with receivables from past projects and drag from non-core businesses. However, with the exception of Onewo (02602), impairment risks related to affiliated parties have been largely cleared. The report indicated that leading companies continue to benefit from consolidation in the third-party market, but weak cash collection remains a major headwind; despite intensified competition, most property management firms still achieved their full-year expansion targets, highlighting substantial long-term market potential. Nevertheless, due to reduced resident advance payments and an increased proportion of projects delivered post-2022 with high vacancy rates, the cash collection ratio last year still declined by 1 to 2 percentage points year-on-year. Morgan Stanley believes that short-term profit margins for mainland property management and service companies remain under pressure, but as leading project management firms exit low-quality and non-core projects to optimize their business mix, full-year operating cash flow should be maintained at around 1 times profit. Furthermore, impairments on third-party accounts receivable continue to be a key driver of profit divergence among the various property management companies.
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