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Aldar Properties reports ‘strong pickup’ for London projects

Church Street in Twickenham. Aldar is building homes in the affluent district of southwest London Alamy/Greg Balfour Evans via Reuters
Church Street in Twickenham. Aldar is building homes in the affluent district of southwest London
  • 10 sites bought in ‘prime areas’
  • Two developments in Richmond
  • Net profit up 52%

Aldar Properties remains bullish about London’s property market despite high interest rates and fears that tax rises will be announced in the UK budget on Wednesday.

The government-owned Abu Dhabi company bought British developer London Square in a deal worth AED1.07 billion ($291 million) last year – its first acquisition outside the Middle East and North Africa.

Aldar has since completed 10 land acquisitions in “prime areas of London”. Earlier this month it launched two developments in Richmond upon Thames, an affluent part of southwest London.

There has been “strong pickup” for the Twickenham Green and Twickenham Square projects, said Faisal Falaknaz, Aldar’s chief finance and sustainability officer.

On potential tax rises in the UK budget that could affect property investors, Falaknaz said: “We are not experts on politics. 

“What we do know about the UK market – or London specifically – there’s a shortage of good housing supply and there’s this very strong international demand for it.”

Falaknaz said 95 percent of the land acquired in the UK capital would be for residential sale and buy-to-rent.

London’s house prices increased by 2 percent in September, according to Nationwide Building Society. The average price of a house in the city last month was £524,685.

Falaknaz was speaking on Tuesday as Aldar, the largest developer in Abu Dhabi, reported a 52 percent increase in net profit to AED4.6 billion for the first nine months of 2024. Sales were up 24 percent at AED24 billion and are forecast to reach AED32 billion by the end of the year.

Falaknaz said overseas and expatriate buyers represented 76 percent of total UAE sales in the year so far, at AED15.3 billion.

Aldar, which has developments in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah, has launched eight projects this year, including ultra-luxury beachfront villas near Saadiyat and Yas islands.

It also plans to build a logistics cluster next to Zayed International Airport which will have at least 1.2 million square metres of leasable warehouse space.

“Logistics is one of the sectors that we’ve been really focused on in terms of putting more capital allocation towards,” said Falaknaz.