Emaar to split with Indian joint venture

|By Arabian Post Staff| Emaar Properties’ botched Indian experiment seems to have come the full circle. The Dubai property giant is planning to end its perennially trouble-hit relationship with its Indian joint venture partner MGM Developments.

The troubles of the joint venture named  Emaar MGF Land Limited included a failed stock market flotation and delays to many of its projects.

The demerger will “enable Emaar to implement focused strategy for its real estate business in India and will allow the business to undertake future expansion strategies,” as well as drive its ongoing projects, Emaar said in a statement to DFM.

It did not provide further details or a time frame for when the demerger would happen, except to say that it had “agreed to take steps for the reorganisation of Emaar MGF Land Limited”.

Emaar denied speculation in Indian media last July that it was planning a split, insisting that India was a key market for Emaar through Emaar MGF.

The Indian joint venture had planned to build homes, offices and shopping centres for India’s rapidly-growing middle class as their incomes were rising.

However, it has so far completed only a handful of projects, with many still under construction and suffering from long delays.

Emaar MGF Land Limited posted a net loss of 3.53 billion rupees ($53 million) in 2015, narrower than the 3.84 billion rupees it lost in the previous year, according to the ICRA ratings agency, which said in a January note that the firm was constructing 49 projects with total saleable value of 187.45 billion rupees.

According to Reuters, Emaar MGF also came under fire from the government in New Delhi for shoddy construction and months of delays after being contracted to deliver the $230 million athletes village for the 2010 Commonwealth Games held in the Indian capital.

During the peak of India’s property boom in 2007, Emaar MGF planned to raise $1.5 billion through an IPO but was forced to abandon the plan in February 2008 due to a stock market slump as the global financial crisis hit home.