Aldar Properties net profit triples in Q1

Aldar Properties, the largest property developer in Abu Dhabi, said yesterday its first-quarter net profit had tripled as handovers and sales of key developments boosted revenue.

The builder of the emirate’s Formula One race track made a net profit of 453.4mn dirhams ($123.4mn) in the quarter, up from 154.3mn dirhams in the same period of 2013, it said. SICO Bahrain had forecast the firm would make 329.8mn dirhams in the quarter.

Revenue for the quarter jumped 6% to 1.72bn dirhams, with recurring revenue 22% higher year-on-year at 497mn dirhams thanks to its hospitality and investment property portfolio.

Aldar also said that since the start of 2014, it repaid 2.8bn dirhams of loans, or 20% of its gross debt, after receiving 3.5bn dirhams in contractual payments from the government of Abu Dhabi.

“We are seeing impressive sales and leasing activity, debt has been reduced by the repayment of 2.8bn dirhams in loans and we are on track to meet synergy savings for the merger,” Abubaker Seddiq al-Khoori, chairman of Aldar Properties, said in the statement.

The majority state-owned developer, which acquired rival Sorouh Real Estate last year, is recovering from a collapse in the emirate’s property market that forced the company to take government support worth $10bn in exchange for assets. Abu Dhabi’s real estate market slumped by about 50% from its peak in 2008 after a bubble burst in the wake of the global financial crisis. But prices rebounded strongly last year, rising some 25%, on the back of a series of market-boosting measures by the government including the scrapping of annual rent caps.