Arabtec expects better cash flow in wake of Nakheel payments

Beirut : Arabtec Holding, the UAE's biggest builder, expects cash flow to improve now that the government is helping Dubai-based developer Nakheel pay its bills to contractors.

Arabtec, also based in Dubai, is owed about Dh4.7 billion by its clients, a figure that hasn't changed much over the last five quarters, Chief Financial Officer Ziad Makhzoumi said in Beirut yesterday.

The government has pledged to pump $8 billion (Dh29 billion) into Nakheel to help it pay suppliers and complete projects.

"The issue was Dubai, and that is being sorted out now," Makhzoumi said. "In other areas we don't have any issues."

Dubai is unlikely to return to the pace of growth it saw in the years before the restructuring plan, he said. "The rate of growth will have to change," Makhzoumi said. "What we will see now is normal growth of an economy."

Arabtec, which has an order book of Dh23 billion, gets more than half its revenue from the UAE.

The company is bidding for projects including the Abu Dhabi airport expansion, a Guggenheim museum and the Mafraq Hospital, the CFO said.

"If all the projects that we started continue and the new projects we are bidding for are awarded, then probably substantial revenue will come from outside the UAE," he said.