Deyaar CEO expects "substantial" Q1 profits - paper

original source Reuters

Dubai developer Deyaar expects to post "substantial" profits in the first quarter and will continue with its international expansion plans, its chief executive was quoted as saying on Friday.

"We are sitting on AED1bn ($272m)of cash. We are cash-flow positive, we are profit-positive and we have literally no debts. Our fundamentals are strong, this is important because we can weather the storm better than others," Markus Giebel told Gulf News.

"We can take the excess cash and buy land internationally. There is no better time to start international expansion," Giebel was quoted as saying.
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He did not elaborate on how much or where Deyaar was planning to invest, Gulf News reported.

Deyaar said in January it had set up a division to buy distressed assets in countries such as Turkey and India with the aim of expanding its land bank.

Developers in Dubai have cancelled or postponed hundreds of billions of dollars worth of projects and companies have slashed thousands of jobs as the global financial crisis hit the emirate's once-booming property sector. In February, Deyaar said it would put at least a quarter of projects on hold.

Deyaar posted a 59 percent rise in net profit to AED343m ($93m) in the fourth quarter, mainly on property sales and leasing. (Reuters)