Arabtec chairman and founder set to leave after board omission

Chairman Khadem Al Qubaisi and founder Riad Kamal excluded from the list of 16 people seeking membership of the board at UAE’s largest publicly-traded contractor.

An Arabtec sign in front of Nation Towers on the Abu Dhabi Corniche. Silvia Razgova

The Arabtec chairman Khadem Al Qubaisi is set to leave the company after his name was not included on a list of board nominees. Founder Riad Kamal was also not included on the list.

Mr Al Qubaisi, who is also the managing director of Ipic and the chairman of Aabar, was not on a list of 16 nominees for the company board to be decided at the Arabtec AGM on Thursday, according to documents submitted to the Dubai Financial Market.

A board committee is tasked with choosing which names to pass forward for election.

“Mr Al Qubaisi is very much seen as an establishment figure so this move may been viewed as a negative by the market,” said Sanyalak Manibhandu, research manager at National Bank of Abu Dhabi.

Arabtec shares closed up 4.66 per cent on Thursday at Dh2.92. However, most analysts put this down to a market-wide uptick thanks to an increase in the price of oil.

In accordance with UAE company rules, Arabtec shareholders will elect a new board of directors from the nominees and the board will later vote to elect a new chairman from among their number.

Mr Al Qubaisi presided over the Arabtec share crisis last year, when Arabtec stock fell from a high of Dh7.70 on May 14 to Dh2.61 on June 30.

The crash came in the wake of the sudden departure of the former chief executive Hasan Ismaik last June, which heralded a major company restructuring and the departure of key managers.

Mr Kamal, who founded Arabtec in 1975, resigned as chief executive in February 2013 and was replaced by Mr Ismaik. His departure is considered less surprising. “Mr Kamal was bound to leave the company at some point,” Mr Manibhandu added.

Arabtec declined to comment further on the reshuffle.

Last month Arabtec startled the market by revealing a Dh94.4 million loss for the final three months of 2014, compared with a Dh122.1m profit the same period a year prior.

Net profit for the year fell more than 48 per cent to Dh241.6m from Dh468.3m in 2013 as general and administrative expenses ballooned almost 75 per cent to Dh749.9m from a year earlier.

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