Qatari real estate companies have been ranked among the region’s top companies by Forbes magazine. Qatari Diar, Ezdan Holding Group, and Barwa Real Estate Group have made it to the ranking of top companies in their respective categories in Decem-ber’s issue of Forbes Middle East.
Qatari Diar is ranked fourth in ‘Top 50 Real Estate Developers in MENA 2021’. “Established in 2005, Qatari Diar was founded by the Qatar Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund. It has a shared capital of $8bn and 50 investment projects under devel-opment across 22 countries with a total investment value of around $35bn as of 2020.” noted the December 2021 issue of the magazine.
In October 2021, Qatari Diar announced the first phase of its $63.7m CityGate project in Egypt, which is projected to create around 200,000 jobs.The real estate market is the cornerstone of any economy and the way it moves has a rippling effect. The Middle East’s real estate sector appears to be bouncing back fast, with property prices increasing on the back of increased oil prices and gov-ernment policies. Forbes Middle East December 2021 issue also said, Ezdan Holding Group ranked sixth in top 50 real estate developers in MENA.
“Ezdan Holding Group was established in1960, initially founded as a private company called Thani Bin Abdullah Housing Group. It became Ezdan Real Estate Company in 2007 and was listed on the Qatar Stock Exchange. In September 2021, the company reported total assets of $13.8bn and $64.1m in net profit for the nine months of the year. The group’s market cap was $11.7bn as of November 9, 2021,” noted the magazine
.Barwa Real Estate Group has been ranked eighth in the ranking. “Barwa Real Estate Group operates 3.6 million square meters of total built space. It also owns Waseef Asset Management Company (Waseef), which pro-vides asset, property and facil-ities management services to Barwa’s projects,” Forbes issue said. “Barwa is 45 percent owned by Qatari Diar, a firm owned by the Qatar Investment Authority. It had total assets of $9.9bn by the end of September 2021, an 8.5 percent increase from the $9.1bn as of December 2020.
The firm also reported a net profit of $203.9m in the first nine months of 2021, a 2 percent year-on-year rise compared to 2020’s $199.8m,” it added.For the ‘Top Real Estate Developers In MENA 2021’ ranking, Forbes only looked at developers who have delivered their projects. It has not included some large developers across the region whose megaprojects are not yet functional.
