DAE revenues up marginally in the first half of 2024

Dubai Aerospace Enterprise's (DAE) revenues were up marginally by 1.4% to $679.2 million for the first half of 2024, compared to the first half of last year. The company's operating profit was up 4.5% to $334.2 million, which was largely driven by higher revenues and gain on aircraft disposal partially offset by increase in cost of providing engineering maintenance services throughout the first six months of the year. Profit for the period was $148.8 million, compared to $141.1 million a year prior, representing an increase of 5.5%. ""The continued strength of demand for both leased aircraft and airframe maintenance can be seen in both the growth of our top line revenue and profitability, and in improvements to our margins and returns,"" said DAE CEO Firoz Tarapore. As of June 30, 2024, its total assets were $12.9bn, up from $12.3bn at the end of last year. The increase was largely due to cash from operations and from loan drawdowns during the period. Its available liquidity was $4.9bn at the end of the second quarter. Its net debt-to-equity ratio was 2.58x as of June 30. Additionally, at the end of the second quarter, it had 489 aircraft in total in its fleet. This consisted of 312 owned aircraft, 111 managed and 66 committed aircraft. During the first half of the year, it purchased four owned and six managed aircraft. It also sold ten owned and one managed aircraft in the period. The company signed 77 lease agreements, extensions, and amendments during the period for 61 owned and 16 managed aircraft. The weighted average age of its owned fleet for passenger and freighter aircraft were 7.4 years and 10 years, respectively as of June 30, 2024. The company expects the second half of 2024 to be ""an active period"". Tarapore said: ""Our orderbook positions are placed until the second quarter of 2026, although continued delivery uncertainty from Boeing is delaying near-term deliveries."" The company's aircraft orders are exclusively for Boeing aircraft. In an earnings call, Tarapore said it has only received half of the deliveries it had anticipated to receive so far this year. In July, DAE recommenced its bond repurchase program, and is now providing indicative bids across its bond maturity ladder. As of June 30, 2024, DAE had available authorisation to repurchase up to $274 million of outstanding bonds. In addition, DAE Engineering saw ""exceptional revenue and profitability growth"", added Tarapore, with the segment's revenue increasing 33% in the period to $92 million and profitability doubling to $20.5 million. The company's unsecured credit ratings were upgraded to Baa2 by Moody's and to BBB by Fitch Ratings earlier this year.