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Mubadala Development Company (Mubadala), the Abu Dhabi-based development and investment company today published its Annual Report relating to activities in 2008.
Setting out clearly the company’s mandate, vision and values, the Annual Report describes how Mubadala is working with leading global organizations to deliver some of Abu Dhabi’s most high profile and strategically important projects. Many of these projects underpin the Emirate’s ongoing process of economic diversification.
The report underlines Mubadala’s ongoing commitment to matching market expectations in terms of transparency, corporate governance standards and commercial discipline. It also highlights examples of Mubadala’s work in sectors as diverse as energy and industry, healthcare, infrastructure, real estate and information communications and technology.
Available on the Mubadala website (click here to view the annual report), the report looks at the development of the company from its establishment by Emiri decree in 2002 to the wide-ranging business that it is today. It shows how Mubadala is delivering against both financial and social responsibility objectives. In doing so Mubadala is expanding the economic base of the Emirate and in turn significantly contributing to the growth and diversification of the Abu Dhabi economy.
As Mubadala’s business has grown, so has the scale and ambition of its commercial partnerships. Reported transactions of note in 2008 included a multi-faceted agreement with the European aerospace group EADS, marking an important step forward in the creation of a global aerospace hub in Abu Dhabi; a wide-ranging agreement with GE that provides Mubadala with diverse opportunities in commercial finance, clean energy research and leadership development; the acquisition of Pearl Energy, a significant landmark in Mubadala’s strategy to become an active participant in the international upstream petroleum sector; and a joint venture with Veolia that will focus on water purification and distribution, wastewater treatment and reuse.
The Annual Report includes a message from His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Board of Mubadala, in which he underlines the support Mubadala enjoys from its shareholder, the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. His Highness says that Mubadala is valued “for both its economic significance and commercial integrity” and that the Government “expects the scale and diversity of its operations to continue to grow in the future”.
Also included in the Annual Report is detailed information about Mubadala’s financial performance for the calendar year 2008 - a period of rapid business development. Mubadala’s total assets grew from AED39 billion in 2007 to more than AED54 billion by the end of 2008, representing an increase of 40 percent over the previous year. The company also saw sharp increases in revenues, up by more than 370 percent to AED6.7 billion compared to AED1.8 billion for 2007.
The strong performance was offset by the company’s cautious approach to the valuation of some investments as a result of the decline in Global stock-markets (the S&P 500 Index of leading stocks fell by more than 38% in 2008) and oil prices (which halved between January and December 2008, and ended the year more than two thirds down from their peak in July). This resulted in impairment charges for 2008 of AED8.8 billion spread across a wide variety of publicly and privately held investments in the USA and other markets and contributed to a loss of AED11.8 billion in 2008 against a profit of AED1.3 billion the year before.
Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Mubadala CEO and Managing Director, said:
“For Mubadala 2008 can be summarised as a year of landmark projects, significant international investments, and the laying of solid foundations for the delivery of sound financial returns in the future. What is, I hope, clear from our first Annual Report is that the ongoing establishment of multi-dimensional, mutually beneficial partnerships remains at the heart of Mubadala’s strategy.”
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