Dubai-based construction company Arabtec appoints new group CEO

The board of directors at Dubai-based Arabtec Group have appointed Wail Farsakh as the new group chief executive officer.

Farsakh who until now occupied the position of group chief operating officer (COO) of the UAE’s largest listed contracting company replaces Peter Pollard.

Additionally, the board appointed Najeh Awad as acting group chief financial officer (CFO).

Wail joined Arabtec as group COO in September 2019 and has was primarily focused on restructuring Arabtec’s construction business. “In the past eight months, considerable progress has been made in closing out legacy projects, strengthening line and project management and closely aligning the group’s construction related businesses,” the group said in a statement to the Dubai Financial Market.

Farsakh has over 33 years of experience in the UAE and has delivered civil, marine, roads, retail, residential and hospitality projects.

Awad, meanwhile has over 27 years of experience in finance, risk, investments and operations. In this time, Najeh has worked with Ernst & Young, PWC and JP Morgan and the Abu Dhabi General Services Musanada as CFO, the real estate and project management arm of Government of Abu Dhabi.

Most recently, Awad was group CFO for listed company Abu Dhabi Ship Building.

“Najeh brings a deep understanding of contracting, along with strong relationships with key stakeholders within Abu Dhabi and federal government, regulators and banks,” added Arabtec in its statement.

It may be recalled that Arabtec’s former CEO of its construction business, Boyd Merrett, resigned from his role in October 2019.

Read: Dubai’s Arabtec Construction CEO resigns

Arabtec which has a workforce of over 45,000 people, reported a 47.2 per cent drop in net profit for Q2 2019 to Dhs26.1m, resulting in several management changes last year.

Read: Dubai contractor Arabtec mulls merger with Abu Dhabi’s Trojan