Aldar deepens funding base with green credit

Aldar Properties has closed an AED 5 billion five-year syndicated sustainability-linked revolving credit facility, giving Abu Dhabi’s biggest listed developer a fresh layer of financial flexibility as it pushes ahead with expansion across development, investment properties and strategic capital partnerships. The senior unsecured facility, structured across conventional and Islamic tranches in dirhams and US dollars, lifts Aldar’s total available liquidity to AED 38.2 billion, including AED 13.9 billion in cash and AED 24.4 billion in undrawn committed facilities.

The transaction matters not only for its size but for its timing. Aldar entered 2026 from a position of record earnings and strong sales momentum, reporting full-year 2025 revenue of AED 33.8 billion, net profit of AED 8.8 billion and group sales of AED 40.6 billion. Management has been building a larger funding cushion as it scales up activity in Abu Dhabi and beyond, while also preserving room to refinance or deploy capital without immediate pressure on the balance sheet.

The new facility is Aldar’s second sustainability-linked syndicated revolving credit line after the AED 9 billion deal it closed in January 2025. That earlier financing had already pushed available liquidity to about AED 26.9 billion. The latest syndication marks another step in the company’s effort to diversify lenders, currencies and instruments while tying borrowing costs and structure more closely to environmental and governance goals that have become central to how major Gulf borrowers present themselves to international capital markets.

Aldar said the syndication attracted 10 UAE, regional and international financial institutions, a smaller club than the 15-bank group involved in last year’s larger revolving facility but still broad enough to signal healthy appetite from lenders. The participating banks in the new deal were Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait’s Abu Dhabi branch, Al Masraf, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates Islamic, Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank, ICBC and SMBC. The book-building process began in February and, according to the company, progressed in line with plan.

For Aldar, the significance lies in what the revolving format allows. Unlike a term loan raised for a fixed use, an RCF gives a borrower the ability to draw, repay and redraw funds as needed, which is especially useful for a developer managing land payments, construction cycles, acquisitions and working-capital swings. Floating-rate pricing adds exposure to market rates, but it also allows the borrower to benefit if funding conditions ease. By mixing Islamic and conventional tranches and offering both dollar and dirham options, Aldar widened the pool of banks able to participate and reduced reliance on any single funding channel.

The liquidity build-up also reflects a broader capital strategy that has accelerated over the past 15 months. Aldar said the new facility follows a USD 1 billion public hybrid notes issuance and a USD 1 billion private placement with Apollo completed earlier this year. In its February results statement, the company said it had raised AED 18.7 billion in capital during 2025 and then added another USD 1 billion of subordinated hybrid notes in January 2026 to strengthen financial flexibility and preserve senior debt capacity.

That capital raising spree has been underpinned by strong operating momentum. Aldar’s development revenue backlog reached AED 71.7 billion at the end of 2025, while its wider project management services backlog stood at AED 94.8 billion. Assets under management in the investment platform reached AED 49 billion. The company also said it awarded AED 66 billion in development contracts in the UAE during 2025 and continued to replenish its landbank with gross development value of more than AED 120 billion. Those numbers point to a business that is not merely hoarding liquidity, but preparing to deploy it across a very large pipeline.

Another part of the picture is resilience. In March, amid regional tensions, Aldar said its year-end 2025 available liquidity exceeded AED 30 billion and stressed that it faced no major refinancing requirements over the next two years. The new facility takes that cushion meaningfully higher and extends the maturity profile, with average senior debt maturity standing at five years and undrawn committed facilities averaging three and a half years. That should reassure investors watching whether Gulf property groups can maintain growth while insulating themselves from volatility in rates and geopolitics.

The sustainability-linked label is also central to the message Aldar is sending. While the company did not spell out the detailed performance hurdles in the announcement, it has been aligning financing with measurable ESG targets and has separately set operational goals around waste recycling, water intensity and greener procurement. That approach fits a wider regional trend in which large issuers use sustainability-linked structures not only to underline environmental commitments but also to broaden access to international lenders and investors that increasingly screen borrowers on disclosure and transition credibility.