Nakheel recorded a 27 per cent rise in profits last year as the Palm Island developer completed more than 3,150 new homes.

The master developer behind the Palm Jumeirah and The World man-made islands off the Dubai coast said net profit grew to Dh2.57 billion.

Revenues for the year to the end of December 2013 rose 20 per cent to Dh9.4bn.

“This is a very good indication that the real estate market is back and growing in a healthy way,” said the chairman Ali Rashid Lootah.

Nakheel said that the amount of cash it had collected from customers nearly doubled from Dh3.7bn in 2012 to Dh7.1bn in 2013 as home buyers made their final payments on projects that had been delayed by the financial crisis in areas such as Palm Jumeirah, Al Furjan, International City, Jumeirah Village, Jumeirah Park and Jumeirah Heights.

Nakheel said that the increase in cash collection, which rose 300 per cent since 2011 when it stood at just Dh2.3bn meant that it was able to announce that it would repay more than a third of its total bank debt of Dh6.8bn, due for repayment in September 2015, ahead of schedule in the current quarter.

“This news that Nakheel has increased the amount of cash it has collected is further evidence of the company’s strong financial performance since the 2012 and 2013 recovery and the fact that its customers are once again comfortable with real estate following the crisis,” said Gus Chehayeb, the director of credit research at Exotix.

A total of Dh4bn would be repaid this year. At the time Nakheel pledged to become debt-free by 2018. The company said that it is considering an IPO after it has cleared its debts.

The company was part of the Dubai World conglomerate that spooked financial markets in 2009 when it asked creditors for a debt repayment standstill. In 2011 it was taken over by the Dubai Government and restructured its debts.

Since it restructured, Nakheel said that 80 per cent of customers who bought property in stalled schemes had reached an agreement with the developer. It added that it had also made payments of Dh12.3bn to its trade creditors and contractors since restructuring.

Nakheel plans to hand over a further 1,600 homes in the coming year, according to Mr Lootah. That is equivalent to about half the number it handed over in 2013 – as the company completed most of the remainder of the schemes it had started before the financial crisis.

The company said that it was in the process of developing 3,500 new homes, with an estimated sales value of Dh10bn. The development pipeline also includes 3.6 million square feet of shopping space that will cost Nakheel Dh6bn to build and more than 1,200 hotel rooms worth another Dh1.5bn.

The developer declined to disclose how much of its turnover was generated from housing sales and how much came from its retail and leisure businesses. It also declined to say how many off-plan sales it had made during the year or to give a breakdown of sales prices and volumes.

“As far as prices are concerned we did not increase our prices last year,” said Mr Lootah. “Our sales price per metre is the same as it was last year. I don’t think we need to increase prices. You get increases when there is speculation. Everybody is trying to stop speculation.”

lbarnard@thenational.ae