Kuwaiti investment group Al Mazaya Holding and UK real estate company Caledonian Development will launch a US$100m fund this week to invest in Dubai’s luxury property sector, its CEO has told
Arabian Business
.
Al Mazaya CEO Khaled Esbaitah also said that the group was set to launch a construction materials business in Bahrain and is currently raising US$56.5m to invest in Jordan’s real estate industry. In an exclusive interview with
Arabian Business
, Esbaitah said: “Caledonian Development was responsible for raising US$50m from [its base in] Scotland while we raised US$50m from Kuwaiti investors. The first board meeting will be this week and the fund will target elite property in Dubai.”
According to Esbaitah, Caledonian Development is keen to partner Al Mazaya in the development of its Dubai-based Q-Point, the Villas and Jumeirah Lake Towers projects. The second phase of the partnership between Caledonian and Al Mazaya will be a “reverse fund” to invest in real estate in the UK and “other parts of Europe,” according to Esbaitah. In April 2006, the two companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to invest in Gulf property but the fund – which has now been amended to target Dubai only – has taken almost a year to materialise.
Meanwhile, having set up a subsidiary in Jordan, Al Mazaya is in the process of building a fund to invest in its increasingly lucrative real estate sector. Esbaitah estimates that it will take “three to four months” to raise the US$56.5m required for the investment vehicle.
The company, listed on the Kuwait and Dubai bourses, is also looking to set up a “construction materials shopping centre” in Bahrain.
Last month, Al Mazaya – that has a capital value of US$98.9m – sold two of the three towers in its US$340m Al Mazaya Business Avenue project in Dubai for US$220m. In 2006, the group recorded a net profit of US$82.2m compared to US$47.9m the previous year.
The company’s Q Point project – a residential and commercial real estate development to be built in Dubailand – is being developed in partnership with Tamweel and Mizin, a member of Dubai Holding subsidiary, Tatweer.
Based in Scotland, Caledonian Developments was conceived to seize opportunities in the Middle East’s emerging property sector and has been investing in the region since 2001.
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