SALAMA Islamic Arab Insurance provisional net profit at Dh53m

Premiums underwritten during the first three quarters of the year amounted to Dh 357 million, Investment revenues and other revenues stood at Dh 57 million compared with Dh 2.6 million in the first nine months of 2004. The total assets and shareholder equity stood at Dh1,696 million and Dh1,046 million respectively.

"In the first nine months we have got very close to our year end profit forecast of Dh 61.5 million. By any standards this is an outstanding performance, achieved across all our core business activities," said Shaikh Khaled bin Zayed bin Saqr Al Nehayan.

"We are confident the strong upward trend in profitability will continue during the remainder of this year and in the years ahead. We have already announced an aggressive Dhs 950 million expansion programme into new markets and new products, which will drive future profitability and shareholder value. We expect our net profits to quadruple by 2010."

Commenting on third quarter earning Dr. Saleh J. Malaikah, Vice Chairman & CEO of SALAMA Islamic Arab Insurance Company said: "This is the first time we are reporting our results after the increase of paid up capital from Dh 50 million to Dh1 billion. In this quarter we devoted considerable time on consolidating the entities we have acquired in Egypt, Algeria, Sengal and Tunis. Our operations have continued to perform well and are on course to achieve excellent year end results."

"The company will publish its final results for the third quarter on November 20; we require slightly longer to publish our financial results because of the consolidation of financial information of our subsidiaries, specifically BEST RE which is a Re-Takaful company. It needs additional time in obtaining account confirmations from companies doing business with it. This is inherent due to the nature of the re-insurance business."

An established Islamic insurance and reinsurance company, SALAMA Islamic Arab Insurance Company was recently listed on the Dubai Financial Market following an Initial Public Offering, which was many times over subscribed, which helped raise the company capital to One Billion Dirhams. SALAMA Islamic Arab Insurance Company has six Takaful companies and provides services in 70 countries through Tunisia headquartered BEST Re, the world's biggest Islamic Re-takaful company.

As part of its strategy for future growth, the company intends to invest Dh165 million in developing its insurance products base in UAE; increase the capital of BEST Re $55million to $100million. It is expected that capital enhancement of BEST Re will help Standard & Poors (S& P) improve its BBB "Good" and A M Best's B++ "Very Good" ratings. The company plans to establish a Dhs 100M Re-Takaful company in Saudi Arabia and a Dhs 58M Takaful business in Malaysia.

Other plans include the incorporation, with a capital of Dh 200 million, of the Islamic Arab Insurance Company, Saudi Arabia, in which "Salama" Islamic Arab Insurance Company will have a major stake, and investment of Dh 32 million in Egypt to set up a family Takaful company. A further Dh 20 million has been allotted to family Takaful in the UAE and Dh11million to incorporate, SOSAR Life, a family Takaful provider in Senegal.