Aldar Properties PJSC, Abu Dhabi’s real estate developer, investor and manager, has announced its plans for Cityscape Abu Dhabi 2011, the international real estate investment and development event held at ADNEC from 17-20 April.

Al Bandar

Among the projects to be showcased is the fully completed Al Bandar, home to modern apartments and duplexes, loft-style residences and larger family apartments. In September 2010, Al Bandar became the first residential community to be delivered within Al Raha Beach, Aldar’s waterfront development.

Staying at Al Raha Beach, Aldar will be showcasing two residential communities set for completion in 2011 – Al Zeina and Al Muneera. The first phase of the Al Zeina development, which consists of three residential buildings, will be delivered in the second quarter of this year, with the remaining four buildings scheduled for completion in the following quarter. Properties at Al Zeina are now on sale, and will be available for purchase during Cityscape.

Elsewhere in Abu Dhabi, new homes are also now available for sale in Al Bateen Park in the heart of Abu Dhabi and in the Al Ward residential community at Al Raha Gardens.

Aldar will also be showcasing HQ, the striking building at the gateway to Abu Dhabi that offers over 50,000 sq m of premium office space in a prime location over 23 floors. The first tenants have now moved in to the building, Aldar themselves being one.

Trust Tower will also be on show at the event. Located in the heart of the Central Business District, within walking distance of many of Abu Dhabi’s key government buildings, the tower sits above Central Market and will become the tallest dedicated Grade A office building in the City at 278m.

The Souk at Central Market will also be shown at the stand. Already a key landmark in the heart of the city, the Souk fully opened its doors in November 2010 with a variety perfume, jewellery and watch stores, as well as health and beauty and food outlets. Next door at Central Market, Emporium, the new fashion retail destination for Abu Dhabi, including the Middle East’s first House of Fraser department store, will also be on display.

Information on Yas Mall, the major new retail destination at Yas Island, will also be found at the stand.

Sami Asad, Aldar Chief Executive Officer, commented, “Our immediate focus is on delivering our existing projects, and the last year has seen much success for us here. Ferrari World Abu Dhabi is open and running smoothly; owners are enjoying their new apartments at Al Bandar, the first community delivered at Al Raha Beach; and new tenants are right now moving into HQ, which Aldar itself now calls home. This is because we have a strong sense of why our projects exist and what advantages they offer to our customers, be they residents or visitors. Cityscape Abu Dhabi is an opportunity both for current and potential customers to learn more about us, and for us to learn more about what it is our customers want. It also provides a great opportunity to share market knowledge with our peers, build sector transparency and strengthen what is a maturing market, and we look forward to another successful event.”

For the first time at this year’s Cityscape Abu Dhabi, Aldar will be explaining its work through its new brand. Grounded in detailed research, the Aldar brand is based on six ‘brand experiences’ that Aldar delivers to its customers: creating communities; injecting excitement into life; indulging in the best life has to offer; taking time for yourself; creating inspiring working environments and enjoying spontaneous activities.

Aldar is inviting Cityscape visitors to learn more about these experiences and to give their own interpretations of what they mean for them by designing a graphic to be placed on the expressions wall at the stand. The best of these ‘expressions’ will be integrated into future Aldar brand designs.

Proposals have been invited from interested contractors for infrastructure works at the Shiebat Al Watah housing development in Al Ain, according to developer Aldar Properties PJSC.

Located about 10km to the south of the Al Ain City centre, the project is a new residential community comprising Shiab Al Ashkhar and Shiebat Al Watah. The overall project comprises two housing programmes for UAE nationals. The original construction period was cited as 36 months.

The Aldar Properties PJSC development will comprise 1,580 units over a total project area of 500 acres, in addition to a full range of educational, healthcare and retail facilities.

Key highlights of the proposed infrastructure include 41km of internal roads and pedestrian paths, a 45km water network system and 32.5km sewerage system. Medium- and low-voltage power networks and a fibre-optic telecoms network are also included.

The architect and urban designer is Woods Bagot, while RSP/Jones Lang LaSalle is the property consultant. In September last year, Ramboll Middle East’s environmental department was commissioned to provide environmental consultancy services to the project.

The last date for submissions of proposals is 13:00 on Wednesday 27 April. Tender documents can be collected during normal office hours from the Project Management Office in Al Ain. Contractors interested in submitting proposals must be working in Abu Dhabi, and have special classification for main road works.

“Contractors working in all other emirates, and who are registered and licensed in those emirates, and who are not classified in Abu Dhabi, should be qualified in accordance with the applied terms and conditions of regulatory rules and submit details of similar types of projects carried out by them, provided they have a valid trading licence from the Chamber of Commerce,” states Aldar.

Aldar Properties, Abu Dhabi’s biggest developer, posted a loss of AED12.658 billion for 2010 on the back of steep declines in regional property values, despite the continuation of several key projects.

The company’s loss before the impairments linked to so-called ‘fair value’ measurement of property – marked at current market price – stood at AED1.35 billion, against a net gain of AED354.1 million in 2009, a result the company attributes to an increase in the depreciation charge and finance costs for the year.

The write-down in the value of its assets to market prices, which compounded the loss, aimed “to reflect the adverse conditions that have reflected the real estate market in the UAE”.

The company has sought to restructure its debts to get on a firmer financial footing following the decline in market values, which also weighed on half-year results up to June 2010.

In December the company sold Ferarri World, its car themed amusement park, as well as related infrastructure to the government for AED10.9billion, along with an AED5.6billion sale of land and houses.

Aldar’s board also recently approved the issuance of AED2.8 billion in convertible bonds to Mubadala Development Company, a state-backed investor.

Revenue, mainly generated from land and property sales, rents, property investments and other businesses, fell by more than 92% to AED818.4million from AED1.57billion the previous year, although returns from project and asset management services helped the company’s other operational segments rise from AED394.2million to AED964.6million.

Higher depreciation charges helped push up the company’s general expenses by 27%, partly offset by cutting staff costs by a quarter.

But the company completed a number of key projects in and around the UAE capital, including the Yas Links Golf Course. Al Bandar and Al Gurm projects were also handed over to owners, and it plans to complete projects in Al Muneera and Al Zeina this year. The value of its development work in progress rose 27% for the year to AED13.8billion against the total value in 2009.

Ahmed Al Sayegh, Aldar chairman, said the commitment to complete projects would have “a positive long term impact for Abu Dhabi”.

“We have also put in place new financial framework, focused on strengthening the capital structure and ensuring the business has a sustainable future,” he said.

The company’s shares have steadily decreased in value since April, reaching their lowest level on record on at the end of January at AED1.65. Yesterday the shares closed down 3.2% to AED1.8 on news of the company’s losses for the year.

The restructuring of Aldar, Abu Dhabi’s biggest developer, would not affect its relationship with MEP contractor Voltas, which has executed major Aldar projects such as Ferrari World on Yas Island, and is currently working on the Central Market development.

Voltas Limited executive VP and COO Shaukat Ali Mir.

“They have been very positively supporting us. There is a great relationship. We consider Aldar as one of our key customers. We are certain that they will restructure themselves well; they have the government supporting them. It is a great model, and we look forward to doing a lot more work with Aldar,” said Voltas executive VP and COO Shaukat Ali Mir.

Mir pointed to the company’s ongoing relationship with Aldar, which has ranged from the Formula One racetrack to Ferrari World and Central Market at present, due for completion “by the middle of next year,” he said.

“Aldar has just announced other Yas Island projects, such as a shopping mall and waterpark, and we look forward to bidding on all these projects as well. The tenders are all due to be submitted by February, so the award should take place by April or May.

“Aldar’s current restructuring will not hamper in any way the plans they have for their new developments. They have huge support from the government. Most of these real-estate companies, be they private or public, have all been affected by the downturn.

“I suppose it is a question of reorganisation. Aldar is one of the key real-estate companies in Abu Dhabi, and I think they will survive and do very well, in my personal opinion,” said Mir.

Meaning is everything when it comes to branding in today’s consumer obsessed markets.

Aldar translates as ‘home’ in English, Emaar is ‘constructing’, while Nakheel means ‘palm trees’. Aldar’s new brand is less about bricks and mortar and more about customer experience. Delores Johnson / The National

UAE developers’ names are a case in point: Aldar translates as “the home” in English. Emaar is “constructing”, Nakheel means “palm trees”, while Sorouh is the Arabic for “edifices”.

Simple concepts, perhaps. But after the global economic crisis and UAE property slowdown, a more complex question beckons: how do these brands really translate in a wary and uncertain consumer market?

Not particularly well, according to research by Brand Finance, a leading independent valuation consultancy. In the company’s annual survey of the top 50 Gulf companies, the brand equity of the biggest regional developers has declined this year.

Abu Dhabi’s Aldar saw a 75 per cent drop in its brand value this year compared with last year.

Part of the problem with property brands is that they are rooted in the “off-plan” model of sales, says John Brash, the founder and chief executive of Brash Brands, an agency based in Dubai.

“When it was a boom, no one really cared about the end users … it wasn’t their main priority,” Mr Brash says. “As long as you have investors, you’ve got your money. It just became about square footage and costs.”

But some developers, through necessity, are now treating their customers differently. This comes through the realisation that instead of “flipping” property – the practice of investors reselling units for a quick profit – their core customers are now more interested in living in them.

The recent rebranding of Aldar reflects this concept. Last month, the company announced a change of logo and a shift in its business to emphasise the “human” aspects of its developments.

Aldar’s portfolio includes residential and commercial property, plus retail, leisure, education and health developments.

To reflect this, the corporate identity will be realigned based on six “brand experiences” the company aims to deliver to its customers. These are, it says: “creating communities; injecting excitement into life; indulging in the best life has to offer; taking time for yourself; creating ­inspiring working environments; and enjoying spontaneous activities”.

The branding work was done by Wolff Olins, the international agency that created the logo for the London 2012 Olympics.

Some branding experts say Aldar’s new identity is reminiscent of the London Olympics visuals. “The brand identity is distinctive but does remind us all of the Olympic 2012 identity, which funnily enough was designed by the same agency,” says Hermann Behrens, the chief executive of The Brand Union Middle East, a consultancy based in Dubai.
For Aldar, sleek images of developments complete with aspirational slogans have made way for branding messages more focused on the experience of day-to-day life.

Charles Wright, the managing director of Wolff Olins Dubai and the lead strategist on the Aldar rebrand, says the new approach is about more than a logo.

“Putting a fancy logo on a property really makes no difference at all. You’re not going to be fooled by something superficial,” Mr Wright says.

Aldar’s new brand is less about bricks and mortar and more about what happens outside the four walls of construction.

“In a simple sense, it was to make less emphasis on building towers and to shift the emphasis on to providing experiences to consumers,” says Mr Wright.

“The convention of real estate in this region is still bricks and mortar. It’s a hangover from the days when you could sell virtually everything off-plan.

“The new emphasis is on the practical, day-to-day things. [It’s] stuff like car parking. That’s a very small example but it’s the kind of thing that, day in day out, becomes a real pain in the neck.

“You need things like doctors, mosques, schools and shops … because those are the things that make it possible to lead a normal family life.”

Marie Clark, an account director at Wolff Olins who worked on the Aldar account, says some other property developers have overlooked these mundane but important aspects of life.

“In some places, they create these developments that don’t even have a supermarket. That’s creating a community that is very transient,” Ms Clark says.

Ashley Dymoke, Aldar’s brand manager, describes the change as “a shift to a more customer centred focus, as Aldar is no longer just a property developer”.

“It’s not just a question of changing the look of Aldar. It has to change from the internal processes and what we do,” Mr Dymoke says.

As part of this, all direct Aldar employees were invited to a presentation about the new brand. This included everyone “from PAs right the way up to the CEOs”, he says. “We very much wanted to involve our staff, so they really felt part of the brand.”

Mr Brash says Aldar’s position is not unprecedented in the region. He points to the Dubai developer Emaar, one of his clients, as having pioneered such an approach in the UAE.

Mr Brash says Emaar’s malls, education, healthcare and hospitality divisions represent exactly what Aldar is trying to achieve.

“Emaar’s positioning from day one has been integrated lifestyle communities. Emaar was really the pioneer.”

But they have no choice. As Mr Wright says, the key question for all property companies is “how they will restore confidence in people to invest in property”.

In a difficult market, property companies must stand for more in the eyes of their customers.

GCC property firms’ brand values suffer

Four of the five property companies in the GCC saw the value of their brand decline this year. According to the Brand Finance’s annual list of the top 50 GCC brands, Aldar’s brand is worth US$185 million (Dh679.44m), down from $734m last year.

Gautam Sen Gupta, the managing director of Brand Finance Middle East, says the company calculated brand value using a number of scores, including brand awareness, brand heritage and marketing spend. “Brand is what determines the longevity of a company,” he says. The higher the brand’s value as a percentage of the business, the better, Mr Gupta says.

A higher brand value can result in increased customer loyalty, enabling the company to charge premium prices and attract new clients from competitors, he says.

In the Brand Finance Middle East list, Emirates Airline ranked as the number one brand in the GCC, with a brand value of $3.5bn.

There are no property companies in the top 20. Emaar, which was ranked the 13th last year, is 26th this year. Aldar went from the 10th top brand last year to the 46th this year.

bflanagan@thenational.ae

Aldar today unveiled a new brand direction that reinforces its evolving consumer focus and embraces its position as a contemporary Arab company and leading contributor to the development of the Emirate under Plan Abu Dhabi 2030.

Mohammed al Mubarak, Chief Commercial Officer, unveils the new Aldar brand at a presentation to staff at HQ last week.

Grounded in detailed research with a wide ranging audience of Emiratis and expatriates who live, work and play in Abu Dhabi, the brand repositioning will see Aldar make a transition from a multi-brand strategy to an overarching central brand, leading to cost efficiencies as it streamlines its visual identity across the range of its divisions and businesses.

Since its creation five years ago, Aldar has been committed to fulfilling its role as a key partner to the government in developing the infrastructure required to support the expansion of the Emirate. With the delivery of product across the full development spectrum – residential, commercial, retail, leisure, education and health – Aldar is now managing an increasingly diverse portfolio.

The Aldar brand is based on six ‘brand experiences’ that Aldar delivers to its customers. These are: creating communities; injecting excitement into life; indulging in the best life has to offer; taking time for yourself; creating inspiring working environments and enjoying spontaneous activities.

With further significant deliveries scheduled in 2011, Aldar has continued to develop its operational expertise across the business and is now ideally placed to meet the diverse demands of its customers. The new brand, which sees Aldar’s portfolio reorganised into six key experiences, is designed to allow customers to easily navigate the offering.

Mohammed al Mubarak, Chief Commercial Officer of Aldar Properties said: “This new brand is representative of our evolution from pure development company to a more customer centric organisation as we continue to deliver our wide-ranging portfolio. By focussing on the experiences our customers have by living, working and playing in Abu Dhabi we are better placed to reflect their lifestyles and meet their specific needs.”

Wollf Olins, a leading international brand consultancy, has worked with Aldar to deliver the new branding concept.

(ABU DHABI, UAE) — This week I joined a press tour of the Al Bandar community that sits on the coast north of Abu Dhabi island looking across a small harbor to Yas Island, home of the Formula 1 Grand Prix track and Ferrari World. Al Bandar is the northernmost portion of the Al Raha Beach development that includes HQ, the iconic disc shaped office building.  Yas Island and Al Raha Beach are among Aldar’s signature projects.

Al Bandar so far means Al Naseem A, B, C – three towers built in a staircase stepped fashion, Al Manara – a rectangular tower that is mostly glass, and Al Barza – a low building with a brick exterior. These residential buildings are complete except for finishing touches as is the cement plaza where they sit. However, all around, construction is ongoing.

The press visitors gathered in an apartment on the seventh floor of Al Naseem B where a huge terrace looking over the water to Yas Island greeted us. The view will be wonderful at some point in the future. Today, a lot of  unpaved terrain comes in front of the sea and Yas Island.

We were told the water will come to the foot of the concrete plaza below which means that digging, dredging, and trucks will be part of the view for whoever decides to live in that lovely apartment, for six months at least, maybe longer. The colorful brochure in English and Arabic that promotes the entire Al Raha Beach project, branded as “the ultimate waterfront city,” calls Al Bandar an island which means there will be more dredging from the highway exit to the community as well as in the direction of Yas Island.

Then we were taken to the most up market section, the Al Manara tower which features a single apartment per floor. The apartment we entered on the second floor was enormous with wraparound balconies accessible from most rooms. A huge living room with two glass walls was next to the largest open plan kitchen/dining/family room I have ever seen, nearly the size of the living room itself.

According to Aldar Sales Director Rami Nasser, some of these apartments were sold for $1.6 – $1.9 million. He said that prices for the remaining apartments are not appreciably lower although most of the building was sold two years ago, before the financial crisis and even before construction started, as used to be the case in Abu Dhabi and especially Dubai.

Now, as I have written in previous columns, Abu Dhabi and Dubai have switched places. In real estate, in the arts, in education, more seems to be happening in Abu Dhabi than in Dubai. Dubai used to be full of plans for future extravagant buildings and looked as if it had few areas untouched by ongoing construction – everywhere roads were diverted; trucks carrying enormous loads of sand or pipes blocked traffic; sand and dust were in the air in every part of the city.

It’s quieter now in Dubai though building hasn’t stopped entirely, but the atmosphere is less hurried, there are fewer traffic jams, and the air looks cleaner, at least as much as one can tell without measuring. A government publication revealed this week that 500 projects have been cancelled in Dubai which has made a big environmental and psychological difference.

The Cityscape Global exhibition and conference next week is smaller than last year’s which was already smaller than in previous gold rush boom years. Fewer exhibitors will be using less total exhibition space. The two largest developers in Abu Dhabi, Aldar and Sorouh, are skipping Cityscape Global this year and preparing instead for Cityscape Abu Dhabi in April 2011.

That’s makes sense because what used to be called Cityscape Dubai has been renamed Cityscape Global, and the organizers have made a point of featuring projects from outside the UAE in their publicity. Dubai is reviving its old 19th century role as a center of trade and economic activity in the Gulf and focusing on retail and tourism while real estate which drove the engine from 2001-2007 is no longer center stage.

Against this background of a Dubai economy  that is beginning to stir again, the emirate’s ruler and UAE prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said this week in an interview, “We are back.”  In Abu Dhabi Aldar continues to unveil projects that are at least semi complete like Al Bandar and the new Central Market in the heart of the city where some stores have already moved in before the towers above are ready for occupancy.

The press tour signified that Aldar is making a push for owners or renters to move into the Al Bandar apartment houses. So far, 22 families are resident. By the middle of next month, 150 will have moved in. Nasser said that 90 percent of the apartments in Al Bandar have been sold which means owners are betting that prices will go up as Al Bandar becomes more of a place to live and less of a base for construction.

At least most of the people who are moving into Al Bandar are guaranteed a water view and a reasonable distance from other buildings. In the up market Khalidiyah area near the Corniche where I live, at least eight 20 or more story towers are close to completion. Most of them have only a few feet of clearance from a neighboring tower. Residents will have to keep opaque curtains permanently drawn to avoid knowing too much about their neighbors.

That’s the situation in Abu Dhabi new apartment housing today which is why Aldar can claim Al Bandar as a luxury project. It has some fine features, no doubt, like the three outdoor swimming pools but in the Al Naseem towers, hallways are narrow and elevators small, not what one associates with luxury apartment houses.

Abu Dhabi housing supply for expatriates has been so limited the last few years that rents for any kind of apartment were way too high and new buildings began to be built without too much consideration for tenant requirements like onsite garages. Many people new to the capital will be moving into bright new apartments that offer no view and no parking. For the next few years, those apartments will be more expensive than better ones with more amenities in Dubai, but Abu Dhabi’s continued economic expansion will keep them filled while oversupply in Dubai should keep those rents low.

Property companies are pressing ahead with the development of gas networks in outlying parts of Abu Dhabi even though the Government has yet to give the green light to a comprehensive plan for the rest of the city.

A gas distribution system is now operational at Yas Island. Galen Clarke / The National

It is four years since the local gas distribution company Q Energy completed a critical preliminary stage of the project known as a “front-end engineering and design study”.

Since then, as it has waited for a decision from the Government, one new Abu Dhabi community has acquired a gas supply.

“Yas Island now has natural gas flowing,” Jim Lloyd, the head of project management at Q Energy, told the City Gas MENA conference in Abu Dhabi yesterday.

He was referring to the island north-west of Abu Dhabi that was recently developed with a marina and a cluster of luxury hotels and residential complexes around the Formula One track.

Gas distribution systems would also be built for Reem and Sadiyaat islands, which are under development as part of the expanding municipality of Abu Dhabi, Mr Lloyd said.

“The developers of the islands have moved the gas plan forward because they want to use natural gas within their communities,” he said on the sidelines of the conference. “The islands are the low-hanging fruit.”

Q Energy is a gas distribution partnership between the Abu Dhabi property developer and infrastructure company Al Qudra Holding and Lootah BC Gas, a gas utility joint venture between Dubai’s Lootah Group and the Canadian pipeline company Terasen.

However, it was Aldar, not Al Qudra, that developed Yas Island. Three other Abu Dhabi property companies, Tamouh Investments, Sorouh and Al Reem Investments, will develop Reem Island.

The Abu Dhabi Government-owned Tourism Development and Investment Company is the master developer for Sadiyaat Island.

As well as developing the first island community in Abu Dhabi to use natural gas to supply energy for cooking and hot water, Aldar is also heading the first residential project on the Abu Dhabi mainland to include a gas distribution network.

The 28km Yas Island pipeline system would be extended to Aldar’s Raha Beach development, said Gamal el Gebely, the group business development manager of the Abu Dhabi contractor Al Fanar Gas Services.

tcarlisle@thenational.ae



Ferrari World

Aldar has appointed advisers that are understood to include Allen & Overy (A&O), Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) and DLA Piper. A&O, which has advised the developer in
the past on Islamic and conventional fundraising, was appointed for corporate and finance work, BLP for areas including real estate, development and regulatory work, while DLA Piper has also advised on real estate in the past.

John Sipling, partner and head of BLP’s Abu Dhabi office, said informal relationships still dominate in Abu Dhabi, but that ­panels are becoming more commonplace.

“In all walks of life there’s a thrust towards professionalism [in Abu Dhabi],” he said. “[This panel] wouldn’t have looked out of place in London in terms of the transparency of the process.”

Aldar chief legal officer Richard Gray, a former real estate partner at Australian firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques, asked a total of 31 firms to pitch for places on the roster, with both local and international firms vying for inclusion.