Qatar's Barwa Real Estate H1 Profit Slumps 21.1 Pct

Qatar’s Barwa Real Estate H1 Profit Slumps 21.1 Pct

Barwa made a net profit of 593.6 million riyals ($163 million) for the opening six months of this year, versus 752.5 million riyals in the same period of 2011, it said in a bourse filing on Sunday. It did not provide other figures.

August 5, 2012 3:52 by Reuters

Qatar’s Barwa Real Estate , the Gulf Arab state’s largest listed property developer, posted a 21.1 percent drop in its net profit for the first half of 2012.

In May the company’s chief executive said it planned to launch an 18 billion riyal mixed-use Golf City project ahead of the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament.

Located within the planned coastal Lusail City north of the capital Doha, the project will include 4,000 residential units and a golf course, and is expected to be ready by 2018, group CEO Abdulla al-Subaie said. It will be financed through a combination of off-plan sales and subdevelopment.

Barwa is 45 percent owned by Qatari Diar, the property arm of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. It has properties in France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom and focuses on retail, office, hospitality and residential developments. Last year, Barwa laid off approximately 90 employees in a restructuring move.

(Reporting by David French and Regan Doherty; Editing by Bernardo Vizcaino and Andrew Torchia)