Investment Corporation of Dubai reports 4% increase in profits to Dh10.5b

Dubai: The Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), which owns companies such as Emirates, flydubai, and Emirates NBD, reported on Thursday a 4.4 per cent increase in its net profit for the first half of 2019 to Dh10.5 billion.

The company, the investment arm of the Government of Dubai, said in a statement that the rise in profits was driven by higher performance from its assets in the banking and financial services sectors, as well as from the transportation sector.

The increase was despite a drop in revenues, which fell by 7.7 per cent year-on-year to Dh106.3 billion, primarily due to lower oil prices. ICD said that lower profits from oil and gas as well as aluminium production countered some of the gains from the banking assets.

Earnings from banking and financial services assets were strengthened from a Dh2.1-billion-gain related to the initial public offering (IPO) of Network International Holdings.

ICD’s assets increased by 10.4 per cent to Dh971.1 billion, the company said. Liabilities, meanwhile, rose by 15.3 per cent to Dh739.3 billion. ICD said those increases were driven by the adoption of new accounting standards, IFRS 16, which added Dh58.5 billion of assets and Dh68.2 billion of liabilities.

Mohammed Ibrahim Al Shaibani, executive director and chief executive officer of Investment Corporation of Dubai, said that the company produced a “solid performance” in the first half of 2019, despite the “global growth slowdown and the volatility of key commodities.”

“The diversification of its operations and the focus on improving further efficiencies and growing ICD core businesses helped weather challenging market conditions …” he said.

ICD was established in 2006 to manage the Government of Dubai’s portfolio of companies and investments. It owns some of the largest companies in the emirate including Emaar Properties, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates National Oil Company, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, Commercial Bank of Dubai, and Atlantis the palm, among others.