Drake & Scull to select new board members

The construction company said it will replace management staff who resigned last year

Drake & Scull International says its negative equity position had improved to Dh4bn by the end of last year, compared to Dh4.7bn a year earlier. Rich-Joseph Facun / The National

Dubai-based construction company Drake & Scull International will elect two new board members and update its shareholders on the investigation of its former management team during next month’s general assembly.

The company is looking to replace senior management staff that resigned last year, DSI said in a statement to Dubai Financial Market, where its shares trade.

The latest announcement comes as the contractor confirmed the arrest of its former chief executive Khaldoun Tabari in his home country of Jordan earlier this month.

Mr Tabari, who led the company from before its initial public offering on the Dubai Financial Market in 2008 until October 2016, was arrested on January 5. He remains in Jordan, but has surrendered his passport to the authorities.

The former chief executive stepped down from his role at DSI in October 2016, and subsequently sold his stake in the company and resigned as a board member in February 2017 as the company underwent a share recapitalisation and financial restructuring that saw a further Dh500 million equity investment made in the business.

DSI has struggled following a three-year oil price slump that began in 2014 and, in turn, heavily impacted the property and construction sector in the region.

The contractor was also hit with allegations of misconduct among its executive management last year, which has prompted it to initiate an internal probe. DSI said in May it had handed over files "related to questionable projects for the period 2009- 2016” as part of 15 legal complaints that were filed to the public prosecutor for what it described as “offences by members of the previous management during their tenure between 2009-2017”.