Nakheel Makes Dhs220m Sukuk Profit Payment

Dubai developer Nakheel confirmed on Wednesday that it made a profit payment of Dhs220 million on its trade creditor sukuk.

“Instructions have been sent to Deutsche Bank, the registrar and paying agent for the sukuk, to make the profit payment to all sukuk holders on the due date of June 15, 2014 against the sukuk issued amount of Dhs4.4 billion to date,” a statement said.

State-owned Nakheel, hit by debts during the financial crisis and the subsequent property crash in Dubai in 2008/2009, was forced to undergo a restructuring process in 2011.

But the company has strongly recovered since then and posted a net profit of Dhs629 million in the first quarter of the year, up 28 per cent compared to Dhs491 million in Q1 2013.

It has also begun paying off debts in advance and in January, announced that it would prepay Dhs4 billion out of the Dhs6.8 billion bank debt due to be repaid in September 2015. In February, the developer revealed that it had paid off Dhs2.35 billion.

A Nakheel spokesman said: “We continue to honour our financial commitments and to implement our revised business plan, further helping the recovery of the real estate sector in Dubai. In turn, investor and contractor trust in Nakheel continues to grow.”