HONG KONG (Bloomberg) — In Hong Kong one of the city’s largest office landlords, Bermuda-incorporated Hongkong Land Holdings Limited, posted a 31 percent gain in underlying profit last year on increased rents.Profit excluding property revaluations rose to $245 million, or 10.98 cents a share, from $188 million, or 8.42 cents a share, a year earlier, the company said in a statement today.

A Bloomberg survey of eight analysts had an average forecast of $236.8 million. Sales rose to $555.9 million from $367.6 million.

Rents in Hong Kong’s central business district rose 30 percent last year as demand from overseas banks surged and few new office blocks were completed, according to property adviser Colliers International Limited.

Overseas lenders are expanding in Hong Kong to tap the private banking and corporate finance needs of China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

“The prospects for Hongkong Land are encouraging on a number of fronts,” Chairman Simon Keswick said in the statement. Income will benefit from the higher office rents and retail properties are also “performing strongly,” he said.

Shares of Singapore-listed Hongkong Land fell 1.9 percent to $4.18 today before the earnings were announced.

There’s a shortage of top-quality offices in the city centre scheduled for completion before the end of 2008, according to property adviser Savills Plc. The vacancy rate for Central, where Hongkong Land owns five million square feet of space, fell to 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter, CB Richard Ellis figures show.

Hongkong Land had filled 30 percent of office space at York House, which opened in Central in October, by the year-end, and all the retail levels were fully let, the statement said.

The company’s tenants in Hong Kong are on three-year leases, so its earnings won’t fully reflect surging office rents in the city until 2008, Sallnow-Smith said last year.

The company also books income from the sale of apartments when they are completed, and finished few units in 2006.

Hongkong Land has owned properties in Central since the early days of the former British colony. Based in Hong Kong, the company is incorporated in Bermuda and traded in London and Singapore in US dollars. It’s controlled by the Keswick family through Jardine Matheson Holdings.

The company last year completed its acquisition of Singapore residential developer MCL Land. It also invests in commercial properties in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Chinese city of Chongqing.

Residential profits for the group jumped to $114.2 million from $19.8 million the year earlier, Hongkong Land said.