Dubai: The uncertain market conditions in Abu Dhabi had a telling impact on publicly-listed Eshraq Properties’ 2016 financials, who reported a Dh575 million loss for the year on Sunday. The scale of the losses widened after an impairment charge of Dh593 million on the value of its land bank, the developer said in a statement. No mention was made on which of its land holdings had an erosion in value.
Revenues were Dh28.8 million, against the Dh21.1 million recorded during 2015. That year, the company had reported a net profit of Dh1.61 million.
On its website, Eshraq lists projects in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The mention of the impairment charge stemming from land values comes as a surprise, say market sources, because land prices have managed to hold up well even through the correction the market went through since mid-2014. In fact, some developers in Dubai managed to generate good cash flow from selling plots to investors/end users and which could then be developed by them.
Abu Dhabi’s property market saw a sharp drop in new project activity last year, with only the master-developers willing to commit to new launches. Buying activity among investors took a steep dive. It will be interesting to see whether other Abu Dhabi-based developers will also be recording and value variances.
Eshraq had total assets of Dh2.07 billion as of end 2016 against Dh2.26 billion the year before.
