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Dubai’s investment arm almost doubles profits

By Matt Smith
Woman chef arrsanging food at dnata dnata
Serving up some tasty figures: dnata, wholly owned by Investment Corporation of Dubai, helped the fund boost half-year revenue almost 20%
  • Massive leap in transport earnings
  • Returns from finance arm up 118%
  • Half-year revenue hits $39.5bn

Transport and finance have helped the Dubai government’s investment body almost double profits for the first half of the year.

Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD) reported an 86 percent rise in first-half net profit on Thursday as earnings from its financial services and transportation divisions surged.

ICD, which is the Dubai government’s main investment unit, owns Emirates and FlyDubai airlines, the travel agency and logistics company dnata, Emirates National Oil Company (Enoc) and the stock exchange operator Borse Dubai.

It also holds big stakes in Dubai’s biggest bank, Emirates NBD, and the rival lenders Dubai Islamic Bank and Commercial Bank of Dubai.

In the first six months of 2023, ICD made a net profit attributable to shareholders of AED 22.56 billion ($6.15 billion), up from AED 12.15 billion a year earlier, its financial statement shows.

Over the same period, ICD’s half-year revenue rose 19.8 percent to AED 145.1 billion ($39.5 billion)

The company classifies its earnings into four segments: banking and other financial services; transportation and related services; oil and gas products and services; and other.

Banking and financial services’ half-year pre-tax profit was AED 15.58 billion, up 118 percent from AED 7.15 billion a year earlier.

The transportation wing’s pre-tax profit was AED 8.11 billion in the first half of 2023, up more than 40-fold from just AED 186.0 million in the same period in 2022.

However, pre-tax net profit from ICD’s oil and gas operations fell by more than half to AED 1.92 billion from AED 4.22 billion.

“Other” was relatively steady, with first-half pre-tax profit slipping 10.9 percent year-on-year to AED 4.50 billion. Total pre-tax profit was AED 30.11 billion in the first half of 2023.

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