Americana, the largest quick service restaurant operator in the Mena region, reported a more than 27 per cent rise in 2022 net income as revenue climbed with the addition of new restaurants.
Net income for the 12-month period to the end of December climbed to $259.23 million, up from $203.92 recorded at the end of 2021, the company said in a statement to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, where its shares are traded.
Revenue for the reporting period climbed to $2.37 billion, an almost 16 per cent increase on an annual basis, “mainly driven by like-for-like growth and new store openings”, Americana said in its preliminary financial results filing on Tuesday.
Assets at the end of January-December period climbed to $1.34 billion, up from $1.09 billion at the end of 2021.
Americana, which raised $1.8 billion from its initial public offering in November last year, dual-listed on Saudi Arabia's main Tadawul market and the ADX, the Arab world's two largest stock markets.
It started trading in December after Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, and Mohamed Alabbar, founder and managing director of Dubai's Emaar Properties, bought a 30 per cent stake in the company's issued share capital.
The deal to sell more than 2.52 billion shares drew strong demand from institutional and retail investors, generating $105 billion in orders. The transaction was about 58 times oversubscribed, the company said in a statement at the time.
Americana's IPO was the largest in Saudi Arabia in 2022 and it was also the first company to be dually listed in the kingdom and the UAE.
Americana, founded in Kuwait in 1964, introduced fast-food restaurants in the region in 1970. It was previously traded on the Kuwait Stock Exchange but delisted its shares in 2017. It is the largest out-of-home dining operator in 12 countries across the Mena region and Kazakhstan, and operates restaurant chains such as Pizza Hut and KFC.
The company intends to maintain a “robust dividend policy” and make a partial dividend distribution of about 75 per cent of net profit attributable to the parent company for the second half of 2022.
It expects to pay the dividend in cash during the first half of 2023.
From this year, Americana intends to adopt an annual dividend distribution policy and plans to distribute a minimum of 50 per cent of its profit in dividends, the company said last year.
Lampedusa: Gateway to Europe
Pietro Bartolo and Lidia Tilotta
Quercus
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SPECS
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THE%20SPECS
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The biog
From: Ras Al Khaimah
Age: 50
Profession: Electronic engineer, worked with Etisalat for the past 20 years
Hobbies: 'Anything that involves exploration, hunting, fishing, mountaineering, the sea, hiking, scuba diving, and adventure sports'
Favourite quote: 'Life is so simple, enjoy it'
In 2018, the ICRC received 27,756 trace requests in the Middle East alone. The global total was 45,507.
There are 139,018 global trace requests that have not been resolved yet, 55,672 of these are in the Middle East region.
More than 540,000 individuals approached the ICRC in the Middle East asking to be reunited with missing loved ones in 2018.
The total figure for the entire world was 654,000 in 2018.
Directed by: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry
4/5
The%20specs
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The biog
Favourite car: Ferrari
Likes the colour: Black
Best movie: Avatar
Academic qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in media production from the Higher Colleges of Technology and diploma in production from the New York Film Academy
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
THE%20SPECS
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Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
