Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company saw its H1 profit nearly triple as the energy focused investment vehicle posted gains on its financial investments.

IPIC which has stakes in Spain’s Cepsa and Austrian oil group OMV posted a USD 424 million gain on financial instruments compared with a loss of USD 1.1 billion for the year ago period boosting profit after tax to USD 1.16 billion from USD 413 million a year ago. The company’s revenue rose 17% to USD 8.63 billion.

The prospectus showed that IPIC which has USD 61.8 billion in total assets gave AED 7.3 billion interest free loan to its unit Aabar in September. Unlisted IPIC had raised the funds via an unsecured conventional loan. Aabar bought Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank’s 25% stake in Malaysian group RHB Capital earlier this year.

Sources said that Aabar would get USD 1.9 billion loan through its parent IPIC from ADCB to pay for the deal. The prospectus also showed Aabar has raised its stake in Virgin Galactic to 37.8% from 31.8% after investing a further USD 110 million in the company.

IPIC which has a mandate to invest in the energy sector had a total debt of USD 31.8 billion. It has received six equity contributions from Abu Dhabi totaling USD 3.5 billion since inception the last of which was in 2008. IPIC will kick off investor meetings in Germany today for a potential bond issue.

It tapped global debt markets in March when it raised about USD 4 billion in three tranche euro and sterling denominated bonds to fund its Cepsa acquisition.

(Sourced from Reuters)