Dubai: Bigger destruction charges in connection to its real estate advantages hit UAE’s building materials provider RAK Ceramics, which registered a total loss of Dh126.2 million for 2020 when compared to Dh205.2 million in 2019.
For the year 2020, it has suggested a cash dividend of 7.5 percent.
But the company- one of the biggest names in tiles and sanitaryware in the region- will be taking a great deal of heart from its appearing between October to December, with all its critical business sectors in the sure region.
In specific, there was Saudi Arabia, where RAK Ceramics witnessed whole year revenues up 57.9 percent as its spotlight on “retail and wholesale sales” provided. Adding on, the Kingdom had provided anti-dumping duties on cheap ceramic imports from China and India, and that also helped RAK Ceramics.
In Saudi Arabia, the company is gaining from the past buyouts of the two distributors and helping on that activity straight, provided by the CEO.
“We were able to capitalize on the opportunity in Saudi Arabia and enhance our business in that market while managing costs and delivering stable revenue in other markets,” said Abdallah Massaad, Group CEO. “Our operations in Europe and India have improved, reflected in our gross profit margins.
“Given our ability to act decisively during times of crisis, we were able to implement measures to manage the impact of COVID-19 which allowed us to achieve an accelerated recovery starting from Q3-2020 where we reached pre-COVID-19 levels of operation and performance.”
COVID-19 and real estate
The pandemic brought about lesser demand for its products in the initial six months, as building sites and developer clients lowered on new orders.
There was also the same “slump in real estate”, which guide RAK Ceramics to show its land advantages and emerged in damage of Dh213.2 million. There was also a supply of Dh23.1 million in relation to one of its hotel advantages.
The initial-half demand decrease was directly the reason for 2020 revenues decreased by 8.7 percent to Dh2.35 billion. (To place things in some outlook, if the second-quarter figures are removed, revenues raised 1 percent to Dh1.94 billion.)
Slow return
“In the UAE, projects are coming back, but the market conditions are still difficult,” the CEO said. “What we are doing internally is focusing on improving the working capital management and that’s helped us a lot in 2020.
“While 2020 showed everyone that it’s become difficult to predict anything, we believe the momentum from the fourth quarter is there. We remain a long-term player – being one of the world’s biggest ceramic companies is built on that.”