Shuaa Capital, a leading integrated financial services firm in the region, today announced its highest half-yearly profit since 2009 for the first half of this year.

For the six months ending June 30, 2017, the firm reported a net profit of Dh36.8 million ($10.02 million), compared to losses in the corresponding period of last year of Dh78.3 million.

Delivering its second consecutive profitable quarter, SHUAA Capital reported a 124 per cent increase in net profit for the second quarter of 2017, reaching Dh12.1 million (Q2 2016: net loss of Dh50.8 million), with the continued swing back to profitability driven by proprietary investments, advisory transactions and management fees of real estate funds.

Total revenues in Q2 2017 were Dh30.4 million (Q2 2016: Dh44.6 million), while total revenues for the first half of 2017 stood at Dh62.2 million (H1 2016: Dh90.1 million), the company said

Income from proprietary investments during Q2 2017 reached Dh22 million, while provisions reduced significantly to Dh11 million compared with the corresponding period of 2016 (Q2 2016: Dh57 million). General and Administrative expenses stood at Dh17.8 million (Q2 2016: Dh30.5 million).

Fawad Tariq-Khan, general manager of Shuaa Capital, said: “Our focus during the first six months of the year was two-fold, first to reinforce the foundations of the group, and second to refocus and streamline our operations to create synergies across the business and with external partners. Shuaa Capital’s healthy performance in 2017 is evidence that we are on the right path, and gives us a solid platform to build upon in the second half of the year.”

The performance of Shuaa Capital’s investment banking operations was a notable highlight during the second quarter of 2017. The firm was assigned as lead manager and underwriter for Dar Al Takaful’s Dh50 million rights issue, co-lead manager for the $105 million initial public offering of ENBD REIT, while other buy-sell side advisory transactions are in the pipeline for the third quarter of this year.

On a capital markets front, the first half of the year saw Shuaa as the biggest and most active market maker in the UAE, engaging with all three markets, the Dubai Financial Market, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and Nasdaq Dubai, with plans for further regional expansion of this specialised service.  - TradeArabia News Service