DUBAI (ALETIHAD)

Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) Ltd (“DAE”) on Wednesday reported its financial results for the nine months ended September 30, 2024. 

According to the financial results, the report of business and operations’ highlights showed: 

• Signed agreements to acquire 23 aircraft for approximately $1.1 billion (91% narrow-body; 86% next-generation technology aircraft)

• Number of aircraft acquired: 47 (owned: 11; managed: 36)

• Number of aircraft sold: 47 (owned: 16; managed: 31)

• Lease agreements, extensions, and amendments signed: 103 (owned: 85; managed: 18)

• Owned portfolio contracted: 99.0%

• Number of man hours booked (DAE Engineering): ~1,125,000

• Number of checks performed (DAE Engineering): 212

Commenting on the results, Firoz Tarapore, Chief Executive Officer of DAE, stated, “Profit before tax rose by 57% (13% before exceptional items) on revenue growth of 3% resulting in pre-tax profitability margins of 23% and pre-tax return-on-equity of 11%.” 

She said: “We continue to manage our balance sheet prudently with our liquidity and capital adequacy metrics remaining exceptionally strong. We ended the quarter with $4.0 billion in liquidity and a Liquidity Coverage Ratio of 335%. Leverage, as measured by net-debt-to-equity, improved to 2.45x from 2.53x at year-end 2023.”

She added, “In 2024, we announced the signing of agreements to acquire 33 aircraft from multiple counterparties for an aggregate consideration of approximately $1.6 billion. When consolidated, the acquired aircraft portfolios have a weighted average age of 4.4 years, a weighted average remaining lease term of 8.0 years and are on lease to 17 airlines in 13 countries. The consolidated portfolio consists of 94% narrow-body aircraft by value, and 90% of the portfolio is next-generation technology aircraft.”

She noted that the order book positions are placed until the second quarter of 2026, although continued delivery uncertainty from Boeing is delaying near-term deliveries.

DAE Engineering’s revenue increased year-on-year by 35% to $131 million, and profitability increased by 128% to $27.6 million. The development of additional state-of-the-art hangar capacity at our facility in Amman, Jordan remains on track with our aim to have an additional five hangar lines in operation by the end of 2024.”