Dubai listed firm Arabtec has submitted a proposal to the government eyeing to construct over 13,000 houses in Egypt.
According to the firm’s chairman Mohamed Thani Murshed al-Rumaithi they have submitted a new proposal that is completely different from the first Memorandum of understating that they got into with Egypt in the year 2014 to build up 10,000 homes by 2020.
Since then, the two parties have failed to agree final terms on that deal, leaving it in limbo they opt the second proposal will be agreed upon by the two parties.
Arabtec earlier this month reported losses for a fourth straight quarter, with a “difficult environment” contributing to a 24% decline in revenue.
In a statement to the Dubai Financial Market, the contractor said it made a net loss attributable to equity holders in the parent of AED944.78 million ($257 million) in the third quarter.
Revenues from continuing operations declined to $435.6 million, as compared to the $571.7 million posted in Q3 2014.
Arabtec added however that it had made good progress on two new projects for Emaar Properties, worth a combined $272.2 million during the quarter. These included building villas at the developer’s Arabian Ranches project.
“2015 will be a very, very tough year. That’s the reality because of the losses the company has faced,” said Rumaithi, who became chairman in May.
A number of senior executive have left Arabtec in the last 18 months, including the chief executive and chief financial officer. Shares in the company have fallen by 85% from a peak in May 2014 as a number of provisional agreements failed to materialise into firm contracts.
Abu Dhabi state fund, Aabar, is a 36% stakeholder in the company according to data from the Dubai Financial Market.Contruction of houses in Egypt are necessary at at time when statistics show that the country has a huge housing deficit.
