Abu Dhabi's Aldar Q3 net up 50%

Abu Dhabi's Aldar Properties posted a 50 percent rise in third-quarter net profit to 760 million dirhams ($206.9 million) mainly on sales revenue, missing forecasts.

The company, the UAE's second-largest developer by market value, made 3.36 billion dirhams in the nine months ended Sept. 30, up 137.9 percent from the same period last year, it said in a statement.

Newswire Reuters calculated the third quarter net profit at 760 million dirhams, up from 505.45 million dirhams a year ago.

Analysts' forecasts for Aldar's quarterly profit ranged from 1.13 billion dirhams to 1.30 billion dirhams in a Reuters net profit survey in September.

Nine-month earnings per share rose 68.3 percent to 1.38 dirham.

"We have delivered very strong results in the first nine months of 2008 and continue to perform in line with our expectations. The profit growth was driven primarily by increase in sales revenues," Chief Executive John Bullough said in the statement.

Nine-month gross revenue jumped to 4.77 billion dirhams from 146.8 million dirhams in the year-earlier period, while the value of developments under construction 119.2 climbed to 18.26 billion dirhams.

"The sales of both land plots and property continue to grow strongly... We exceeded our targets both in achieving these sales in total and also in selling price," CFO Shafqat Malik said, giving property sales as 7.06 billion dirhams and land plot sales at just under 4 billion dirhams.

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