CHEUNG Kong (Holdings) Ltd, the builder owned by Asia's richest man Li Ka-shing, said first-half profit, excluding unit Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, rose 60 percent as it booked more earnings from apartment sales.

Profit before the contribution from the developer's 49.9-percent-owned unit jumped to HK$6.68 billion (US$860 million) from HK$4.17 billion a year earlier, Cheung Kong said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing yesterday.

Home prices in Hong Kong nearly doubled between 2003 and late-2007, as the stock market tripled and the economy expanded by an average 5.6 percent a year. The housing market went into "a moderate consolidation" in the first half, Li said in the filing, suggesting a slowdown in growth.

"Investors will now turn their attention to what's going to drive profit in 2009," Castor Pang, a strategist at Sun Hung Kai Securities Ltd in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg News. "The outlook for the home market in the second half is clearly not as bright as in the past few years."

Not all property sales are reflected in earnings immediately, because Hong Kong developers usually sell residential units off plan while they're still in construction, booking sales and profit only upon completion. Cheung Kong reported higher first-half property earnings after booking profits on apartments sold during 2007 and early this year.

Profit from property sales in the first half rose to HK$5.25 billion from HK$1.8 billion as the firm completed projects in Hong Kong, including the Legend and the CASA880, the filing said. Second-half property earnings will mostly come from completion of projects, including the Capitol and Seasons Monarch.