Amanat Holdings posts solid recovery in fourth quarter

Amanat Holdings, a leading regional investor in healthcare and education, said on Sunday its portfolio witnessed a solid recovery in the fourth quarter of 2020, signalling a rebound in performance since the first wave of Covid-19 outbreak.

Income from Amanat’s education investments increased 67 per cent year-on-year in the quarter while losses from healthcare investments narrowed by 24.6 per cent during the same period. This resulted in income from investments of Dh 39.2 million for the quarter, up 95.4 per cent versus the previous period, the company said in a statement.

Amanat reported a total income of Dh70.6 million for 2020, down by 36.8 per cent year-on-year, while income from investments dropped 22.3 per cent to Dh 56.1 million. Net profit for the year declined to Dh10.1 million from Dh60 million in 2019.

Hamad Al Shamsi, Amanat’s chairman, said the company’s strong market positioning enabled it to tackle the economic headwinds to deliver solid performance and to report reasonable financial results despite the challenging external factors.

“Reflecting on our financial results for 2020 we have witnessed a solid recovery across our portfolio in Q4-2020, thanks to the operational agility and nimble strategic input from our management teams since the onset of Covid-19. Amanat’s balance sheet strength and capital structure managed to put us in a favorable position to achieve these results,” said Al Shamsi.

He said Amanat will look closely at improving its earnings further to ensure adequate and above market dividend returns to shareholders.

“We have built a clear pathway to achieve this through potential divestments, transforming minority stakes into majority investments to consolidate the ‘platform model’ more coherently and investing in assets that have the potential to grow earnings whether through recycled cash or through raising debt. Additionally, Amanat still has cash at hand of Dh 456.6 million,” said Al Shamsi.

He admitted that the challenges Amanat faced during in 2020 did no doubt impact profitability at some of its assets, these strides were navigated adequately and have reversed into solid recovery and, in some cases, even growth, such as Abu Dhabi University Holding Company and Middlesex University Dubai.

Dr Mohamad Hamade, chief executive oficer of Amanat, said the results reflect the company’s proactive response strategy that was focused on mitigating short-term impacts and positioning it for long-term growth.

“We saw a particularly strong recovery in Q4 with income from our education investments increasing 67 per cent year on year supported by strong spring and summer enrollments and successful cost-saving initiatives across our platform companies. We also managed to narrow losses from our healthcare investments by 24.6 per cent,” he said.

Amanat has deployed a total of Dh2.1 billion since its inception, utilising over 84 per cent of its Dh2.5 billion paid-up capital.

— issacohn@khaleejtimes.com