Dubai's Drake eyes contracts worth $190.6m

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DRAKE & SCULL: Dubai firm looking to sign first contract in Libya in next 3-4 weeks. (Getty Images)

Dubai's Drake & Scull International is bidding for contracts worth about AED700 million ($190.6 million) in the Gulf and hopes to win its first contract in Libya in the next 3-4 weeks, its CFO said on Wednesday.

"I am hoping we can close around 700 million dirhams of quality projects between now and the end of the year," Khaled Jarrar told Reuters.

Contractors in the UAE are increasingly looking to expand to North Africa and across the Middle East in an effort to diversify income sources and escape a severe property downturn at home.

Drake - which specialises in mechanical, engineering and plumbing businesses and listed on the Dubai Financial Market in March - has a project backlog worth AED2.9 billion, Jarrar said, adding most of the projects it was bidding for were outside the UAE.

The firm is on track to set up its Libyan unit this year, its second venture in Africa. Jarrar declined to give details of the contract.

Drake, which already operates in Sudan, said in March it would move into Libya as it expands abroad and weathers a downturn in Dubai.

Jarrar said the first of three planned acquisitions in the region would happen by the end of September.

The firm said in March it is looking to buy two companies in Saudi Arabia and one in Kuwait that would compliment its MEP and civil work business, and would spend as much as AED500 million on acquisitions.

"We understand and like the company strategy, and the organic order book momentum is increasing," Nomura Investment Bank said in a research note on Wednesday.

"We believe this stands the company in good stead, although risk remains around taking on significant new orders in Dubai."

The firm's shares closed at AED0.91 a share in earlier trading on Wednesday and have risen seven percent since its first trade in March. (Reuters)

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