Emaar buys out Dubai Holding stake in Dubai Creek Harbour for $2.04bn
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum’s personal investment vehicle, Dubai Holding, will become the second largest shareholder in the developer
Developer Emaar Properties has announced that it will fully acquire the Dubai Creek Harbour development from Dubai Holding for $2.04bn. The announcement was made just after Thursday’s stock market session had closed.
The deal will be equally financed in cash and Emaar shares and is expected to close on 27 September. The 50% payment in cash includes a deferred payment of three equal installments arranged from available cash and banking facilities.
The structure of the deal will see Dubai Holding, which is Dubai ruler His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum’s personal investment vehicle, become the second largest shareholder in the developer. Rothschild & Co said it was the sole financial advisor to Dubai Holding on the deal.
In April 2022, Emaar said it would handover 8,500 residential units by the end of the year.
It is not immediately clear how many shares Dubai Holding will now own; 2022 has seen a 16.5% rise in Emaar’s stock value, with a current share price of $1.55. Emaar’s current biggest shareholder is the Investment Corporation of Dubai, the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund, which owns 24.07% or approximately 1.97m shares.
Dubai Creek Harbour, a residential, retail and commercial real estate development, is expected to cover six sqkm once it is completed. Development of the project temporarily halted in 2020 due to the pandemic, though the emirate’s real estate market has since rebounded.
During the initial outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent lock-down, in May 2020, it was revealed that off-plan transactions in April 2020 were dominated by Villanova and Dubai Creek Harbour for villa/townhouses and apartments respectively.
Emaar has so far recorded $980mn in sales in Dubai Creek Harbour in the first half of the year, compared to $1.143bn in 2021 as a whole. Emaar has previously been regarded as the largest developer in the world, at the time of building Burj Khalifa and the Dubai Mall, when its share price and asset values placed it ahead of the traditional world leaders in the USA and South East Asia.
