Aabar's foreign investments raise profits to Dh1.73b (Updated from initial reports on 1st September,2009)

Aabar Investments Wedensday said the company had reported a net profit of Dh1.73 billion in the second quarter this year, compared with a Dh585 million net profit in the corresponding period a year earlier.

"The profit is mainly due to gains made from our investments in Daimler and Atlantia - an Italian toll road operator,"

a spokesman for Aabar told Gulf News by telephone.

On March 22, Aabar acquired 9.1 per cent of the share capital of Daimler, the maker of Mercedes Benz cars.

Aabar clarified in a statement that there was no net loss suffered by the company during the second quarter and there had been "a misinterpretation of the financial results of quarter 2, 2009 by some analysts as mentioned in some media reports."

Aabar's spokesman said the media reports had

"looked at only the cost of financing that Aabar used to acquire the assets without considering the profit those investments generated."

Shares on Aabar fell 4.94 per cent to Dh2.47 a share on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange on Wednesday, in line with the bearish sentiments on the market.

The total shareholders' equity in Aabar at the end of June 2009 stood at Dh10.94 billion, up from Dh9.20 billion at the end of the fiscal first quarter in March, the spokesman added.

On the company's latest acquisitions, the spokesman said Aabar had agreed to purchase for an undisclosed sum a 32 per cent stake in Virgin Galactic, a US company that plans to send non-astronauts into space from 2011.

"This deal is not yet completed. Payment of money for the stake purchase is subject to approval by US regulatory authorities," the Aabar spokesman said.END