Barwa Real Estate Company Q.P.S.C. ($BRES)

Thank you for standing by. My name is Janice, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Barwa Real Estate Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. And I would now like to turn the conference over to [indiscernible]. You may begin.

Thank you, Janice, and hello, everyone. I want to welcome you to Barwa Real Estate's First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. So on this call from management, we have Tamer Elsayed, Group CFO. So as usual, we will conduct this call with first management reviewing the company's results followed by a Q&A session. I will turn the call over now to Tamer. Please go ahead. Thank you...

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Barwa Real Estate Q1 '26 Post Results Conference Call. I am Tamer Sai, Group Chief Financial Officer, and I'm pleased to be with you today to discuss our performance for the first quarter and our outlook for the period ahead. Let me begin by thanking QNB Financial Services for hosting today's call on behalf of Barwa. Before we proceed, I would like to remind you that today's discussion may include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Barwa undertakes no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. We announced our Q1 '26 financial results on April 28, 2026, and both the financial statements and the investor presentations are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. For those less familiar with Barwa, we are one of Qatar's leading real estate developers with a large and diversified portfolio spanning residential, commercial, industrial and hospitality assets. Our operational portfolio currently covers approximately 5.6 million square meters of built-up area. This includes more than 69,000 residential units and labor accommodation rooms in addition to warehouses, retail showrooms, office properties and hospitality assets. In addition, Barwa maintains a strategic land bank of around 1.9 million square meters, of which approximately 1.8 million square meters is located in Qatar. Within this land bank, we directly own around 820,000 square meters with the remaining balance held under leasehold arrangements. Looking ahead, our strategy is to selectively monetize this land bank either through development or sale, depending on market conditions and value creation opportunities. Turning now to our financial performance for Q1. Our operating revenues from rental and service increased to QAR 486 million compared to QAR 440 million in 2025. Net profit attributable to the equity holders remained stable at QAR 240 million, slightly higher than the QAR 239 million reported in Q1 2025. For the balance sheet, we continue to maintain a strong financial position with net debt of QAR 11.7 billion and a net debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. Our solid balance sheet, coupled with robust liquidity provides us with the flexibility to support ongoing operations while pursuing disciplined growth initiatives. In parallel, we are actively working on refinancing selected facilities to further optimize liquidity and extend debt maturities and enhance our cash flow profile. With that, I'd like to thank you for your continued interest and support. We are now happy to take your questions, and I will hand the call over to the moderator from QNB Financial Services to begin with the question-and-answer session. Thank you.

Janice, we can open it up for Q&A, please.

[Operator Instructions] your first question is coming from the line of [indiscernible] of Al Rayan Investment.

I have a question on the rental. Your rental revenues have improved significantly, 13%, correct me if I'm wrong. Could you tell me the rationale as in this was increase in your occupancy or there were some pricing changes, improvement in pricing that led to this increase? And if it was occupancy, then which projects? The second question is regarding the current geopolitical situations. Have you been in any way impacted positively or negatively by the current situation in the Gulf?

Regarding the increase in rental income from 2025 to 2026, it's mainly from the increase in occupancy in the 2 new Waa projects in addition to some increase in occupancy in the [indiscernible] camp. Okay. As such, the current crisis is still ongoing, and it's -- the situation is quite fluid. As it stands, we haven't experienced any changes in our occupancies. In fact, we have experienced an increase in occupancy, especially in the key properties or the key projects that we are operating at the moment, which are [indiscernible] neighborhood, [indiscernible]...

Could you -- just a follow-up to those questions. Could you talk -- could you let us know what the occupancies were and how much increase we have seen?

I cannot -- so the occupancy currently as it stands is 79% in Madinatna and 75% in Argentine.

And this was increased from what last year?

Last quarter, it was around 72%, if I recollect correctly on Madinatna. And similar, it goes about 67% to 68% in the [indiscernible].

So we didn't experience any sudden drop in any of our properties. It's not like what Dubai has experienced in terms of expats leaving suddenly and their properties and terminating their rental contracts. So far, there is no such thing as this experience by Barwa or its assets.

One last question. You also have commercial properties. Have you seen any demand by your tenants on some benefit or some leeway in the rents? Just like in COVID times, the tenants are asking for some help with the rental income. Have you seen something like that?

I'm sorry, which assets is it?

Commercial properties.

Commercial properties. In general, no such changes basically. So as you know, there is usually a latency in property sector to respond to an economic shock, a systemic shock of such magnitude. It's still -- it's not -- no one has an assurance or a clearance on how this crisis is going to impact the economy overall. So as you know, we're just monitoring the current situation. But in terms of experiencing any drops in occupancies, whether commercial or residential, we haven't.

There's no question in queue at this time, and that concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to [indiscernible] for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call, and I want to thank management for giving us an update on the first quarter, and we will pick this up again in the second quarter. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.