Emaar secures $500m loan for Turkey project

Emaar Properties, Dubai’s largest developer, has secured US$500m in financing from a consortium of banks to be used to fund an upcoming project in Turkey.

The facility, signed with lenders including Standard Chartered, Emirates NBD and HSBC, will finance ‘Emaar Square’, the firm’s second mixed-use development in Turkey. The facility will be repaid over the next seven years.

The 73,000 sqm Emaar Square project, located in Istanbul, will include 1,000 luxury homes, an 180-room five star hotel, the country’s largest shopping mall, as well as offices and a range of other leisure facilities.

“With the current positive growth outlook of Emaar in all its key markets, we are exploring new opportunities to strengthen our project portfolio and create long-term value for our stakeholders,” Emaar chairman Mohamed Alabbar said in a statement.

“Turkey is one of our key markets, where we have successfully handed over homes in the first phase of our first integrated community, Tuscan Valley, and we are now developing Emaar Square in Istanbul that will further contribute to the country’s socio-economic growth,” he added.

Emaar, which built the world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa, earlier this month announced the first project for Mohammed Bin Rashid City, a huge mega development that will be constructed on the outskirts of Dubai.

Emaar’s Dubai Hills component of the project will comprise a luxury gated community of large residences surrounded by an 18-hole golf course.

No funding details or timeframe has been attached to the development of Mohammed Bin Rashid City, a joint venture between Emaar and Dubai Holding, which will also boast the world’s largest mall, more than 100 hotels and a Universal Studios theme park.

Emaar also recently announced an extension to its Dubai Mall, currently the world’s largest shopping centre, which will see the firm add 1m sqft of luxury homes, serviced residents and a new hotel. The developer is also building a new Address-branded hotel and serviced apartments complex within the vicinity of Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa in Downtown Dubai.

Emaar has been one of the better performers among Dubai’s real estate firms, which are still recovering from the 2008-2009 downturn that saw property prices in the glitzy emirate slump by as much as 60 percent.  

In October, the company reported a 4.7 percent drop in third quarter revenue, although that derived from apartments more than tripled to AED567m (US$154.4m) from AED183m in the year ago period. Sales from villas dipped from AED126m to AED123m during the quarter, while income from commercial property sales plummeted to AED109m from AED798.4m 12 months ago.