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29 March 2024

Dunia Finance posts first profit

Dunia Branch (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Staff

Dunia Finance, the leading Abu Dhabi based financial services company, on Monday said it achieved profit for the first time last year after breaking even in March 2011.

Profits increased to Dh18 million during 2011 compared to a loss of Dh88 million in the previous year. The company successfully sharpened its acquisition and growth strategies and further focused on its strategic cost management initiatives to be a low cost provider, in line with the anticipatory steps taken by management to deliver predictable and sustained growth. This full year profit also translates into the company delivering its maiden positive Return on Equity, reaching 6.6% on a full year basis.

During the last quarter of 2011, the ROE was higher at 15.2 per cent.
For the full year ending December 31, 2011, Dunia’s total revenue reached Dh205 million, representing a 94 per cent increase year on year. While customer base also grew significantly by 54% during 2011 over the previous year.

This substantial growth in revenues is attributed to its diversification strategy which saw the company add a range of new products and transaction services, ramp up cross-sell activities, and fine-tune its 360 degree customer-centric approach to ensure customer needs are truly understood.

The company was also able to significantly reduce expenses while maintaining prudent impairment reserves and improving loss absorption capacity.

Executive Director and CEO of Dunia Finance Rajeev Kakar said: “2011 was, by all standards, a record year for Dunia. It was our first year of full profitability and our performance across the board has been phenomenal. Our strategies of prudent and targeted asset growth, balanced risk approach, and proactive cost management along with the innovative approach we have towards alliance creation and product development have all proven highly effective. To achieve this in such a challenging and volatile macro environment, and having launched in the midst of the worse financial crisis in history, is a credit to every member of the Dunia family and to the vision of our founding shareholders.”

Dunia also announced its maiden dividend in 2011 of Dh5 per share of Dh1,000 face value.

According to Kakar, as global credit and finance markets return to some form of stability in 2012 and 2013, Dunia foresees regional markets to improve significantly, further reflecting very well on its business, which continues to perform strongly even in the face of headwinds