Moody's rates Gulf General Investment Company ("GGICO") Baa2 with a stable outlook

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DIFC, June 02, 2008 -- Moody's Investors Service has assigned long term local and foreign currency issuer ratings of Baa2 to Gulf General Investment CompanyGulf General Investment Company ("GGICOGGICO"), a Dubai based public shareholding company engaged in a number of diversified activities including real estate, manufacturing, insurance, hospitality, retail, and transport. The outlook is stable. This is the first time that Moody's has assigned a rating to GGICOGGICO.

"GGICOGGICO's ratings are supported by its conservative financial policy, fairly well diversified core businesses, and a prudent risk management policy, which includes the assumption of shareholder support", says Philipp Lotter, Dubai/DIFC based Senior Vice President at Moody's Middle East Limited and lead analyst for GGICOGGICO. "However, ratings are constrained by geographic concentration as well as a meaningful exposure to the Dubai real estate sector, which the company however plans to reduce over time", Lotter adds.

GGICOGGICO's ratings benefit from its conservative financial policy, as outlined by a target debt to equity ratio of 1.5x, which has been maintained even in recent years when the company was undertaking major investments. Ratings also benefit from fairly strong operationaldiversification, although it remains exposed to the Dubai real estate sector. However, Moody's takes comfort from the fact that GGICOGGICO has adopted a conservative risk management policy, by which it shares part of the financial burden of its developments with other co-investors and pre-sells parts of its developments, thus allowing internally generated cash flows to partially finance its projects. Ratings also incorporate the solid track record and the competitive position that the company enjoys in other core activities, namely the lubricant oil manufacturing and insurance businesses. Ratings also benefit from implied shareholder support from the company's majority shareholder, the Al Sari family, who have considerable wealth outside of GGICOGGICO.

GGICOGGICO derives 20% of its revenues from outside the UAE and is therefore primarily exposed to events in the domestic economy. Ratings are also constrained by the meaningful exposure to the UAE real estate market, and particularly Dubai, where the company is developing most of its residential and commercial projects and owns several buildings for rental purposes. Over time, the company is planning to reduce its real estate exposure by building up additional manufacturing based businesses, which will have positive implications on its ratings over the longer term. The expansion strategy also brings some uncertainty, although it could positively impact the company's overall business risk profile by improving geographic and operational diversification, if pursued within management's traditionally conservative financial targets.

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GGICOGGICO's liquidity profile is adequate, though demonstrating just over AED 1 billion in short term maturities, which will need to be refinanced in 2008. The company plans to address most of this via a capital markets transaction, but also benefits from unused committed credit lines and cash which would cover most of the amount. Furthermore, GGICOGGICO has built up a sizeable investment portfolio with a year-end 2007 value of AED 2.3 billion. Most of the portfolio is invested in liquid UAE and GCC shares and, despite exposing the company to market risk, does offer a significant source for extra liquidity, should this be required.

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GGICOGGICO's Baa2 rating is well positioned, provided that EBIT covers interest expense at least 4 times, debt to EBITDA is kept below 3.5 times, retained cash flow to debt does not fall below the low teens and debt to book capitalization remains below 50%.

A full ratings report on GGICOGGICO will be available shortly on Moodys.com.

GGICOGGICO was incorporated in the Emirate of Ajman by Emiri Decree in 1973under the name of Arab Economists Corporation and is today listed on the Dubai Financial Market. GGICOGGICO's founders and main shareholders are the Al Sari family, which owns 52% directly through Investment Group Ltd, a private company involved in real estate and oil related activities, and 1.5% indirectly. The remaining shares are owned mainly by GCC nationals. At year-end 2007, the company had AED 5,587.7 million (USD 1,521.5million) in revenues.

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© Press Release 2008