Emaar Properties to buy back shares

DUBAI: Dubai's Emaar Properties, the largest Arab developer by market value, said on Saturday it would begin to buy back shares, which have fallen by nearly 50 per cent this year.

The buyback programme will not be implemented before October 1 in line with the UAE Securities and Commodities Authority's (SAC) regulation that companies cannot execute any share buyback 15 days before the end of the financial quarter, the company said.

Emaar announced in December it had won approval from the UAE stock market regulator to buy back up to 10pc of its shares, and was able to buy back shares within a year of the approval granted by the SAC at a board meeting that month.

"The decision taken by the board of directors to buy back Emaar shares reflects our firm belief that those shares are currently undervalued in the marketplace," said the firm's chairman Mohamed Alabbar.

"Recent declines in regional markets are largely not in line with the fundamentals of the majority of companies listed here, including Emaar. Rather, the recent performance of the markets here reflects global trends such as credit crisis and global economic slowdown that affect investors' sentiments."

The firm's announcement comes amid recent sharp falls in property stocks in Dubai due to ongoing police probes into real estate companies, and the introduction of new rules to better regulate the emirate's booming property market.
Last week shares of Tamweel plunged as the mortgage lender became the latest firm in Dubai to come under scrutiny after its chief executive was detained for questioning by Dubai police.

Sharp price falls are not confined to Dubai property stocks however as bourses throughout the Gulf continue to tumble due mainly to concerns of a global economic slowdown and recent heightened political tensions with Iran.
Dubai's Islamic mortgage lender Amlak Finance said in September last year it had received approval to buy back 5pc of its shares. The firm did not say when it would begin buying back shares.