Amlak Finance Third-Quarter Profit Nearly Triples on Mortgages

By Arif Sharif

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Amlak Finance PJSC's third-quarter profit almost tripled on higher Islamic property financing and investments by the United Arab Emirates' biggest mortgage lender by market value.

Net income rose to 175 million dirhams ($48 million) in the period ended Sept. 30 from 67 million dirhams a year earlier. Bloomberg calculated the results by subtracting published six- month data from nine-month figures provided by Amlak today. Assets more than doubled to 15.8 billion dirhams, the Dubai- based company said today in an e-mailed statement.

``The real-estate market in the U.A.E. continues to witness tremendous growth,'' Chairman Nasser Bin Hassan Al-Shaikh said in the statement. Full-year profit will at least double, he said. Amlak, which yesterday said it had begun exploratory talks to merge with Tamweel PJSC, earned 302.9 million dirhams in 2007.

Surging economic growth in the U.A.E., the second-biggest Arab economy, is boosting demand for homes and mortgages. The U.A.E.'s mortgage market will expand 10-fold by 2012 and be valued at about $44 billion, EFG-Hermes Holding SAE, Egypt's biggest publicly traded investment bank, said in December.

Amlak's Islamic home loan portfolio in Egypt has grown to 315 million Egyptian pounds ($58 million) since it began operations in October last year. The company also received regulatory approval to increase equity at Amlak Finance Jordan to 63 million Jordanian dinars ($89 million) from 55 million, it said.

Nine-month profit rose to 444 million dirhams from 173 million dirhams a year earlier, Amlak said today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Arif Sharif in Dubai at asharif2@bloomberg.net