Deyaar’s Distressed Property Fund Raised 250 Million Dirhams

Deyaar Development PJSC, the property company that’s put a quarter of its projects in Dubai on hold, raised half of a 500 million-dirham ($136 million) fund to buy distressed properties.

The fund is “subscribed by a mix of local and overseas investors and would buy back distressed properties from Deyaar’s own portfolio,” Chief Executive Officer Markus Giebel said in an e-mailed statement in response to questions from Bloomberg. “The fund will also look at other properties with high expected returns.” The fund will close this year.

Dubai was hurt more by the global financial crisis than other property markets because of the construction boom that created thousands of new homes just as demand began to evaporate. Within a year, Dubai went from being the fastest rising of 46 markets monitored in the Knight Frank global house- price index to the second-biggest decliner after Latvia.