UPDATE 1-China's Poly plans up to 8 bln yuan share placement

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SHANGHAI, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Chinese developer Poly Real Estate Group Co (600048.SS) said on Wednesday it plans a private placement of domestic A shares to raise up to 8 billion yuan ($1.17 billion) for eight property projects. The company also reported a 50 percent rise in 2008 net profit to 2.24 billion yuan, on turnover that was up 91 percent to 15.52 billion yuan, while predicting intensified consolidation in China's property sector as weak market trends continue.

The volume of the planned share placement will not exceed 20 percent of its existing outstanding shares, the company said in a statement.

The shares will be priced at no less than 15.89 yuan per share and issued to no more than 10 investors.

The company said it plans to invest a total of 21.5 billion yuan in real estate in 2009, down 6 percent from 2008. The plan needs to be approved by the shareholders.

In its outlook for the property sector, the company said it expected last year's trends of slowing domestic economic growth, falling property prices and shrinking sales volumes to continue in 2009, but retained its favourable medium- to long-term view.

It added that, with government economic stimulus measures and monetary easing, the property market should not see a major or rapid fall in prices while transaction volumes should stabilise.

In January, the area under signed sales contracts rose 270 percent from a year earlier, and the contracted amount rose 148 percent to 1.4 billion yuan, Poly said.

Poly's shares were trading at 18.15 yuan on Wednesday morning, down 0.8 percent from the previous day's closing, while the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC had dropped 1.16 percent. ($1=6.835 Yuan) (Reporting by Edmund Klamann and Rujun Shen; Editing by Nick Macfie)