Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Gulf News
Abu Dhabi: United Insurance Company announced a 143.02 per cent increase in net profit reaching Dh11.48 million in the first quarter of 2009, up from Dh4.73 million during the same period of 2008.
The company posted its results on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX)on Monday,reporting a gross underwriting income of Dh12.83 million for the first three months of 2009 with an increase of 316.99 per cent as compared to Dh3.08 million during the same period of 2008. United Insurance Company reported Dh30.67 million total revenues from Dh25.54 million for the same period last year.
The basic earnings per share increased by 155.56 per cent from Dh0.09 to Dh0.23.
The Dana Gas board of directors will meet on Thursday at 7.30pm at Dana Gas Head Office in Sharjah. The board will review the the 2009 work programme and budget, and discuss and approve proposed business opportunities and progress reports on existing company projects.
The Dana Gas board of directors will also look at other routine matters relating to business of the energy company.
The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) yesterday said it encouraged the establishment of listed healthcare funds and the listing of more healthcare and life sciences companies on the exchange.
Tom Healy, ADX chief executive said: "Abu Dhabi is in a stronger position coming out of the financial crisis than many other economies thanks to its hydrocarbon revenues and forward-thinking government policies.
"ADX can therefore provide the international healthcare and life sciences sectors with the infrastructure to access capital on both a local and regional basis."
Postilion, global provider of payments software solutions and a division of S1 Corporation, announced yesterday that Rakbank had selected Postilion Solutions to drive the bank's ATM network. For Rakbank, the implementation of Postilion for ATM owners and deployers will bring operational improvements and help the bank deploy new ATM services faster and more efficiently.
Rakbank chose Postilion to improve the bank's competitive differentiation in the UAE. The Postilion solution for ATM owners and deployers will replace the bank's existing ATM solution, providing real-time monitoring and a holistic view of all payment transactions on the ATM channel.
Postilion's proven reliability and flexibility will allow Rakbank to enhance system availability and will facilitate the introduction of additional banking services more quickly to satisfy new business demands.
Ahli United Bank, Bahrain's largest bank by market value, said its first-quarter profit fell by 8.9 per cent on higher provisions, mainly for bad loans.
The bank said in a regulatory statement on Sunday that net profit attributable to shareholders of its parent in the three months ended March 31 fell to $85.9 million (Dh315.2 million) from $94.31 million a year earlier.
It said it booked net provisions of $47 million compared with only $10.1 million in the year-earlier period. Ahli United posted a net loss of $24.38 million in the fourth quarter.
Renaissance Services has reported its unaudited first quarter results to the MSM and announced an increase in 2009 revenue of 58 million Omani riyals (Dh555.6 million) - a 16.2 per cent boost against 2008 revenue of 49 million riyals.
Operating margins are also ahead with Renaissance reporting 8.9 million riyals for the 2009 operating profit against 6.4 million riyals for the first quarter of 2008.
After discounting the impact of the exceptional capital gain of 4.8 million riyals made in the first quarter of 2008 with the divestment of its technology business, 2009 EBITDA has increased by 36 per cent and operating profit by 39 per cent.
The net profit of 4.8 million riyals in the current quarter is purely from ongoing operations, which shows an improvement of 26 per cent over the equivalent net profit without capital gain achieved last year.
Gulf News 2009.All rights reserved.
