Emaar Malls Group, the operator of the Dubai Mall, on Thursday reported a 55 per cent jump in third quarter net profits as rental income grew.
Also, parent company Emaar Properties said it will hold a shareholder meeting on November 24th to approve a proposed special cash dividend of Dh9bn following the successful IPO of its malls unit earlier this month.
The successful share sale helped Emaar Properties to report on Wednesday a 21 per cent rise in profit for the three months to September despite a second consecutive quarterly decline in revenues as Dubai’s property market showed signs of a slowdown.
The special dividend is equivalent to Dh1.257 per share and shareholders registered as of December 4 this year would be entitled to receive it, Emaar said. Last year it paid a cash dividend of Dh0.15 per share.
According to analysts, the cutoff date implies Emaar could pay the dividend that month, which would be ahead of its annual dividend payout in early 2015 and the news could boost Emaar’s shares when trading resumes on Sunday, Bloomberg reported.
Both of the company statements came after market hours. Shares of Emaar Properties closed down 3.3 per cent but Emaar Malls ended the day flat.
The retail and malls business made a quarterly profit of Dh321.18m, up from Dh206.97m a year earlier.
Quarterly revenue was Dh649.88m - mainly rental income of Dh646m - versus Dh542.74m a year ago. Last year rental income was Dh540m.
Emaar Properties has announced several high-profile developments this year such as BLVD Heights and Opera Grand in Downtown Dubai. It is also developing the vast Dubai Creek Harbour in partnership with Dubai Holding. It said the total sales value of its Dubai projects topped Dh10.5bn over the first nine months of the year.
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