UAE's Aldar Q2 profit soars on land, property sales

PROFIT UP: Aldar Properties has postsednet profit of $326.7mn. (ITP Images)

Abu Dhabi-based Aldar Properties on Tuesday posted its second-biggest quarterly profit on the sale of land and property and expects profit growth to be as much as 15 percent in 2008.

The second-largest United Arab Emirates developer by market value said second-quarter net income rose to 1.24 billion dirhams ($337.6 million), up from 456.8 million dirhams in the same period last year, beating 3 out of 4 analysts in a poll run by newswire Reuters last month.

"(The profit growth) is on the sale of land and property... last year [Q2, 2007] we had not started to sell as we started to sell in the second half of the year," Chief Financial Officer Shafqat Malik told Reuters on Tuesday.
Revenues from the sale of land and property in the second quarter rose to 1.4 billion dirhams from 8.5 million dirhams, he said.
Aldar posted a first half profit of 2.6 billion dirhams compared with 907 million dirhams in the same period last year.
Earnings per share for the first 6 months of the year rose to 1.09 dirhams from 0.53 dirhams.
"The outlook is positive... however, we look at our results and performance on a year-on-year basis and I do expect year-on-year profit growth to be double digit," he said, adding that it would be between 10 percent to 15 percent.
Full-year profit in 2007 rose 55 percent to 1.94 billion dirhams.
HSBC recently raised its target on Aldar to 25.3 dirhams from 18.9 dirhams.Shares in the second-largest UAE property developer by market value closed down 1.21 percent at 12.40 dirhams a share.

The results were released after trading hours.
The stock has gained more than 2 percent this year, underperforming Abu Dhabi's main index which is up more than 9 percent. (Reuters)

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