Construction Week reported that Dubai based Drake & Scull International expects to post revenues of AED 3 billion by the year end and will grow its business 20% to 25% next year as it expands further into Saudi Arabia and Libya.
Ms Zeina Tabari chief corporate affairs officer of DSI said that the firm, which is ramping up its expansion outside of its home market sees tremendous opportunity in Libya and expects to resume its business there early next year.
Ms Tabari said that “We expect to close at around AED3bn based on if we say that we will make around AED 800 million similar to what we did last quarter. Based on a secure backlog, which is around AED 7 billion we expect that next year we’ll probably be growing around 20% to 25% compared to 2011.”
She said that the Dubai listed company which saw its Q3 profits increase 76% also expects to increase its profits in the Q4. The growth has come from two things first of all these acquisitions have started to generate revenue the second thing is that we have managed to win AED 3.6 billion worth of work since the beginning of the year and these projects have started to generate revenue. We’ve seen projects in Saudi Arabia starting to produce hence we see the Q4 hopefully better than the Q3.
Drake & Scull made a net profit of AED 60 million in the Q3 compared with AED 34 million made in the prior year period, beating analysts’ expectations. Construction firms in the UAE were hit hard by the global economic downturn which saw projects in the Gulf state dry up and demand fall. The total amount of construction projects canceled or delays in the UAE increased to USD 170 billion in August.
Ms Tabari said that Drake & Scull, whose biggest market is Saudi Arabia is expanding its operations outside of Dubai and is currently bidding for projects in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. The firm which set up a Libyan unit in 2009, said it expects to restart its operations in the country in January.
She said that we are going back to Libya as of January 1st 2012 we’ve just got board approval to go back to Libya. There are tremendous opportunities for water and power as well as the civil and MEP and we hope to compete on those projects.
(Sourced from www.constructionweekonline.com)
