Macquarie has raised its target price for Keppel Land (KLAN.SI), Singapore’s third-largest property developer, to $4.81 from $4.43 and kept its “neutral” rating.

Macquarie said Keppel Land’s core earnings for 2010 was $273.2 million, which were driven by residential projects in Singapore and China.

The company posted on Monday an eight-fold rise in fourth quarter net profit, helped by a $363.8 million one-time gain from the sale of its one-third interest in a large office project. It had a net profit of about $1.05 billion last year.

Given Keppel’s strategy of divesting income-producing office assets to its unit K-Reit Asia (KASA.SI), Macquarie expects the firm to announce further divestment plans over the next one-two years.

 

The brokerage also noted that Keppel’s low debt gearing of 20% could mean it may bid for more sites in China and Vietnam.

 

Shares of Keppel Land were up 2% at $4.66 at 10:36a.m., but have fallen 2.9% since the start of the year.