Dubai's Tamweel reports Q4 profit jump

Dubai’s Tamweel reports Q4 profit jump

Q4 profit 31 mln dirhams from 8 mln dirhams in Q4 2010; Full-year net profit 101.9 mln dirhams; Tamweel shares up over 7 pct this year

January 29, 2012 3:55 by Reuters

Tamweel, the Dubai-based sharia-compliant mortgage lender, made a fourth-quarter net profit of 31 million dirhams ($8.44 million) in 2011, the company said in a statement on Sunday.

The figure was close to a four-fold increase on the 8 million dirham profit it recorded in the final three months of 2010.

The firm, in which Dubai Islamic Bank is the majority shareholder, posted a full-year net profit of 101.9 million dirhams, a 291.9 percent rise from 26 million dirhams for 2010.

Income from Islamic financing and investing assets for 2011 was 559 million dirhams, up slightly from 553.2 million dirhams in 2010, the statement said.

Total assets at the company stood at 10 billion dirhams at the end of last year, a 2 percent fall from the 10.2 billion dirhams total in 2010.

DIB, the United Arab Emirates’ third-largest bank by market value, raised its stake in Tamweel to 58.25 percent in September 2010, effectively rendering the mortgage lender a subsidiary of the bank.

Tamweel and its rival Amlak ran into trouble after the collapse of Dubai’s real estate sector in 2008.

Trading in the shares of both companies were halted, with Tamweel only resuming last May after a hiatus of more than two years. Amlak’s shares remain suspended.
Tamweel returned to the debt capital markets this year for the first time since its shares started trading again, printing a $300 million five-year Islamic bond, or sukuk, which was guaranteed by DIB.

Shares in Tamweel fell 1.1 percent in trading on Sunday but are up 7.3 percent since the beginning of the year. Earnings were released after the Dubai Financial Market had closed. ($1 = 3.6731 UAE dirhams) (Reporting by David French; Editing by Rachna Uppal) *image from arabianbusiness.com