Deyaar Not In Merger Talks

Property developer Deyaar Development is not in merger talks with any company, its chief executive officer said on Wednesday. If it makes sense to merge, we will look into it. But first it has to make sense to the shareholders, and to the country, said Markus Giebel. Deyaar was earlier rumoured to be in discussions with Union Properties for a merger as the boom in Dubai’s property sector came to an end last year amid the global recession. There are a lot of things in our cards right now including a merger. But right now, we are not talking to anybody. We have enough capital to support our projects and we saw no need yet to go into capital 
raising,” said Giebel. While many property companies expect slower to negative growth this year on poor demand and falling prices,Deyaar is expecting to post profits for each of the quarters. “The next four quarters will all be profit,” said Giebel. Deyaar posted a record 2008 net profit of Dh1.104 billion, up 105 per cent from the previous year. Its fourth quarter net profit also rose 59 per cent from a year earlier to Dh343 million. Giebel said he expects the Dubai property market to recover next year with a number of distressed property companies likely getting support from the proceeds of the $10 billion bond issued by the Dubai government to the UAE central bank. We don’t know how the distribution will be, but it will definitely be something that will stabilise the property sector. The government will not let the Dubai property sector go down, because if it goes down, the whole of Dubai may go down. Deyaar shares on Wednesday closed flat at Dh0.47.