Amlak, a sharia-compliant mortgage lender, resumed trading on Dubai’s stock exchange in June after a six-and-a-half-year suspension. The stock promptly doubled in value in its first six days of trading, trading ‘limit up’ by the maximum allowed 15 percent each day. No announcements from the company were made to justify any movement. The stock accounted for more than 30% of the Dubai exchange’s volume on its first day of trading. A total of 35 stocks currently trade on the local exchange.
Shares of both Amlak and Tamweel, another Dubai-based Islamic mortgage company, were first suspended in November 2008 after the global credit crisis blocked their access to borrowings. Thousands of properties under construction had been funded by the two mortgage companies, which became one of the emirate’s blackest marks during its restructuring with UAE banks believed to be major creditors to both. Amlak signed a $2.7 billion ‘delay and pray’ deal with its creditors in November 2014 after protracted negotiations, with remaining debts now to be paid over a new 12-year period.
