Qatar Daily News

Qatar’s Barwa Bank will purchase The First Investor, a Doha-based investment firm, in an all-stock deal.

Barwa Bank said the deal, which already has the approval of Qatar’s central bank, would see the lender acquire the share capital of The First Investor in exchange for Barwa stock.

Barwa Real Estate, Qatar’s second-largest developer, agreed to buy Qatar Real Estate Investment Co as the slump in real estate prices in the region quickens the pace of mergers in the industry.

‘This transaction will create a company with significant scale and depth across all real estate segments and which will continue to play a critical role in supporting the economic development of Qatar,’ Barwa Chairman Ghanim Bin Saad al Saad, said in the statement.
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French construction firm Bouygues Construction said on Monday it had won a 950-million-euro (1.4 billion-dollar) contract in the Gulf state of Qatar to build an office and shopping complex.

It said its subsidiary Bouygues Batiment International would build nine 18-52-storey office towers, a five-star hotel, a shopping mall, a conference center, a mosque and parking garages on the site, located in the Qatari capital Doha.
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The Egyptian unit of Qatar’s Barwa Real Estate BRES.QA will begin building a $9 billion Cairo project in the first quarter of 2010 to tap strong demand for residential property in the north African country.

Real estate and construction firms in the Gulf Arab region, especially in the United Arab Emirates, are increasingly looking at opportunities in the most populous Arab country, to help weather a downturn in their home markets.

“Work will start in the first quarter of 2010, and the project will be finished in 10 to 12 years,” Tarek Bahaa, head of sales and marketing for Barwa New Cairo told Reuters from Cairo on Tuesday.

The firm is studying all options for financing the investment, including Islamic bonds and loans, he added.
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Barwa Al Khor, a subsidiary of Barwa Real Estate and a leading Qatari developer, has expressed its confidence on the success of its QR35 billion ($10 billion) Urjuan development project.

Ghanem bin Saad Al Saad, chairman and managing director of Barwa Real Estate, said: “The performance of Qatar in every aspect of development amidst the global financial meltdown is truly phenomenal, and this is largely due to the ample initiatives being taken by the Qatari Government to buffer the impact of the economic slowdown to the country’s most important industries.

“The presence of a massive development such as Urjuan underlines the stability and growth of the Qatari economy, and we are confident that this project will deliver beyond the expectations of our customers in terms of the value we will provide for their investments, and that of the people of Qatar for its contribution to the stability and growth of the local economy.”
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