Union Properties has agreed to transfer to Emirates NBD Dh1.1 billion (US$299 million) of assets in two of the Dubai financial district's most dramatic buildings as it seeks to restructure its debt.
The bank, the developer's largest shareholder, will now own a "significant" percentage of the homes and offices in the two properties - The Index Tower, an 80-storey residential and office building designed by Foster + Partners, and Limestone House, a luxury apartment development.
Emirates NBD is also extending the repayment terms on Dh2.7bn of debt until 2017.
"It's a move that makes sense," said Ian Albert, the regional director of the property consultancy Colliers International. "Union Properties rationalises its debt and puts themselves in a better position."
The developer's shares rose 12.2 per cent yesterday on the Dubai Financial Market General Index to close at 26.5 fils, down from a high of 40 fils in August.
Union Properties was hit hard by the downturn in the Dubai property market, where property prices have fallen by more than 50 per cent in some areas since the peak in 2008. For the past two years the company has been working to relieve its debt burden.
In November 2010, the company sold the Ritz-Carlton hotel in the Dubai International Financial Centre to an undisclosed private company in Abu Dhabi for Dh1.1bn. Ten months earlier it had announced an asking price of Dh1.5bn.
In its financial statement released last November, the company listed Dh6.1bn of obligations, including Dh1.7bn due this year. At the time, the company said it was in the "final stages" of rescheduling Dh1.4bn of loans.
The company reported a record Dh1bn loss in the third quarter, after writing down the value of its property portfolio by Dh1.7bn in the first nine months of the year.
A "significant shareholder" - presumed to be Emirates NBD - had agreed to fund the company's ongoing projects, Union Properties said.
The new deal with Emirates NBD "reinforces the bank's role in reanimating the company and pulling it up from the repercussions of the global financial crisis", Khalid bin Kalban, the Union Properties chairman, said in an interview with Al Bayan.
Extending the loan-payment period also provided the company "with protection against more liquidation of assets", he said.
The Union Properties portfolio of residential and commercial developments includes the Green Community and Motor City in Dubailand, and Jumeirah Park Villas.
But Index Tower and Limestone are considered the jewels of the portfolio. Index was named the best tall building in the Middle East and North Africa last year by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
"It's a good deal for both parties," said Richard Paul, the associate director for the property firm Cluttons. "They are units and developments that are doing well in the market."
Developments in the DIFC are performing better than in many other areas of Dubai, analysts say.
"Yes, there are a lot of units coming to the market," Mr Paul said. "But it's an area that people are keen to live in."
Several UAE developers have moved in recent months to pare down their short-term debt load.
Last month, Aldar Properties sold Dh16.8bn of assets to the Abu Dhabi Government. The deal included Central Market and hundreds of homes on Raha Beach. And Emaar Properties arranged Dh3.6bn of long-term financing from a trio of UAE banks, using Dubai Mall as collateral.
kbrass@thenational.ae
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If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
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How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
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COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
