Property Stocks Lead Slide In Dubai

DUBAI — Property stocks led losses on Dubai’s main index, which on Sunday plunged 3.4 per cent at 4,114.74 points, its lowest close since August 2007, as international investors sold their shares. The Abu Dhabi bourse plummeted 2.7 per cent to close at 3,925.08, the lowest since October. Arabtec Holding, builder of the world’s tallest tower in Dubai, fell 11.2 per cent to Dh11.05 followed by Islamic mortgage provider Tamweel with a drop of over 10 per cent to Dh4.21 while Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB), the country’s biggest publicly listed Islamic lender, retreated 5.5 per cent to Dh6.05.

Emaar Properties, the biggest property developer in the Middle East, declined over three per cent to Dh7.34 after it said it plans to buy back its own shares from the beginning of October because these are currently undervalued. It rose as much as 6.1 per cent during the intra-day trading.Kuwaiti-based property developer Al Mazaya Holding Co and Union Properties, the Dubai-based real-estate developer that’s building F1-themed parks, were also among the biggest losers with a respective slide of 9.1 per cent to Dh10 and 8.4 per cent to Dh2.83. Al Mazaya sold a 20 per cent stake in its Saudi Arabian unit to Dubai Group.

We are still seeing large selling pressure on the market by international investors,” said Nadim Abou Jalad, a trader at Naeem Shares & Bonds in Dubai, in a Bloomberg report. “There’s a lot of bad news about the real-estate sector, including all the corruption cases. A number of senior executives in Dubai have been arrested and are undergoing investigation over allegations of corruption. They are either former or current employees of Tamweel, DIB, Deyaar Development and government-owned property developers Nakheel and Sama Dubai. Foreign investors sold Dh2.47 billion worth of shares on the Dubai Financial Market last week compared with the Dh1.75 billion worth of shares they purchased, the bourse said in a statement on Sunday.