Aldar Properties reported a 9.4 per cent increase in third-quarter profit as the government-backed developer reported a jump in recurring revenues thanks to the performance of Yas Mall.
The Abu Dhabi-listed company said that profit attributable to the owners for the three months to the end of September this year rose to Dh634.3 million, up from Dh579.6m in the same period in 2014 and beating analysts’ predictions.
Much of this came from its recurring revenues portfolio, including the 235,000 square metre Yas Mall, 4,800 rented apartments, thousands of square metres of upmarket offices, scores of hotel rooms and its schools business.
Profit from the recurring revenues portfolio nearly doubled compared with the previous year, rising 46.6 per cent to Dh349m from Dh238m a year earlier.
Revenues for the portfolio also increased by nearly a third – up 32.9 per cent to Dh2.06 billion from Dh1.55bn a year earlier as the company leased out all of the 355 shops in the mall, 99 per cent of its homes, 92 per cent of its offices and occupancy at its hotels stood at 79 per cent.
“We’ve got assets in the hotel space, retail, commercial office and residential for the general population so taken as a whole it’s a very diversified proxy optic for the health of Abu Dhabi,” said Greg Fewer, the Aldar chief financial officer.
However, total revenues for the company fell 13.9 per cent during the period to Dh1.17bn, missing analysts’ predictions – something Aldar put down to a change in accounting rules since the previous year, as well as the fact that it handed over a glut of delayed apartments the previous year.
The company said that despite a slowdown in the Abu Dhabi market, it was pressing ahead with the sale of a series of off-plan properties.
According to the property broker Cavendish Maxwell, both villa and apartment prices in Abu Dhabi dropped 1 per cent in the third quarter of the year as mortgage caps, the strong dirham and the fall in global oil prices continued to weigh on the market.
“We still see a constructive market on the ground in Abu Dhabi for new off-plan product,” Mr Fewer said. “There is latent demand in some important sub sections of the market.”
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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