Dubai’s Emaar doubles profit to $167 mln

DUBAI - Reuters

Luxurious fashion brand Armani cooperates with Emaar in hotel development. Hürriyet photo

Emaar Properties, builder of the world’s tallest tower, said its quarterly profit more than doubled over the weekend as a one-off impairment cost was not repeated and income from malls and hotels grew.

Dubai’s largest developer, which saw profits rise for the third straight quarter, has shifted its focus in recent years away from the emirate’s battered property market and toward its more profitable retail and hospitality business. But the company’s chairman predicted a rebound in the property sector in the emirate, where it also owns what is billed as the world’s largest shopping mall.

Dubai’s property market is slowly stabilising after home prices slumped by over 60 percent from their peak in 2008. Foreign investors bought real estate assets worth 28.3 billion dirhams in the first half of 2012 compared to 20.8 billion dirhams a year earlier, data released by Dubai’s land department at the weekend showed.

Emaar said it made net profit of 614 million dirhams ($167 million) in the three months to June 30, up from 250 million dirhams in the year-earlier period. In the second quarter last year, Emaar wrote off its 172 million dirham investment in Dubai Bank. The government took over the lender last year and merged it Emirates NBD. Emaar built the Burj Khalifa tower and is developing Armani-branded hotels.

Emaar’s international operations accounted for just 11 percent of its half-year revenues, as the company delivered units in Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. The firm said it would pursue business in India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan.