By the value within the market, the largest property firm in the United Arab Emirates is Amlak Finance.
According to the recent profit numbers posted by the company, they have succeeded in beating their own projections of profit for the fourth quarter of 2008.
The projections, which were originally considered to be very optimistic, were surpassed by the actual results. The fourth quarter profit for the company was approximately $35 million and the profit for the whole year was $81 million, which eclipsed the total profit in 2006 by a whopping 131 per cent. Their profit margin for the fourth quarter was even more impressive in terms of percentages, logging in at 758 per cent over profit in the third quarter of the same year.
Now, with their 2007 year firmly in the books as being very good, Amlak has decided to look to bigger and better things. They are set to start off 2008 with a bang, having recently announced plans to develop the Al-Warqa suburb of Dubai.
The suburb is very much in need of redevelopment, being it is one of the many underdeveloped communities in Dubai. The supply in the area lags very far behind the demand. To get started on that project, Amlak Finance has already confirmed the purchase of approximately six million square feet of land in that district, a purchase that was also confirmed on Saturday by officials from the government of Dubai.
This purchase is set to take its total real estate investment over the $1 billion mark in terms of holdings and when the land is actually developed into the combined residential and commercial zones that Amlak currently plans for it.
This is by no means the only project that Amlak has planned for the 2008 year, but it is an ambitious project that will get them off to a very good start in their financials and at the same time it is expected the project will provide some much-needed supply for the Dubai housing market in which prices are rapidly spiralling out of control.