2026 earnings call transcript

Alpha Dhabi Holding FY2025 results call - hosted by

International Securities

February 11, 2026

Hello and welcome everyone to Alpha Dhabi Holding 4Q25 and FY25 Results Conference Call hosted by International Securities. My name is Faisal Irfan, Senior Research Analyst at

International Securities and today I have the pleasure of introducing the Chief Strategy and

Investor Relations Officer at Alpha Dhabi.

Derek Nicholson. Along with him, we have the Group Chief Finance Officer, Fadi Sleiman.

Alpha Dhabi team, thank you for joining the call today. Following a presentation of Alpha

Dhabi's performance by their team, the floor will then be open to a Q&A session. In order to ask a question, please tap the raise hand button. Once it is your turn, your name will be announced and your mic will be enabled. You will then be able to unmute locally and speak directly with the company's management. Before you ask your question, we request you to please mention the name of the organization you are representing. I will now give the floor to Alpha Dhabi's team. Derek and Fadi, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our Investor Relations call today. My name is Derek Nicholson and I'm the Chief Strategy and Investor Relations Officer at Alpha Dhabi Holding. The call will provide an update on the financial performance of

Alpha Dhabi for the year ended the 31st December 2025. To provide an overview of the financial results and performance, I'm now going to hand over to my colleague, Fadi

Sleiman, Group Chief Finance Officer.

Thank you, Derek. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Fadi Sleiman and I'm the Group

Chief Finance Officer. Alpha Dhabi has delivered another exceptional year of financial results and performance and continued the trend of year on year growth since its IPO in 2021.

Some key highlights in the charts which demonstrate the resilience of Alpha Dhabi business model and strategy to drive growth across its portfolio, are explained, and more details you will see it in the presentation as we go ahead.

Revenues increased by 24% year on year to reach 78.8 billion and net profit has increased by

11% year over year to 15.1 billion, the highest profit achieved since the IPO. Adjusted

EBITDA, which is the group's preferred measure of profitability to provide comparison on like to like basis, increased by 30% to 17.7 billion. Gross profit at 18.6 billion was 39% higher than the same period in 2024. With gross profit margin increasing to 23.6% from 21.2% in

2024. The corporate tax rate in UAE increased to 15% at the start of 2025 from 9% in 2024 which makes the 2025 achievement of 15.1 billion a great achievement overall. The chart shows the historical growth in revenues between 2021 and 2024, demonstrating the strong, consistent track record of ADH, which has now delivered a multi-year track record of growth.

Key sectors that contributed to the revenues include industrial, real estate, construction and services. This demonstrates the diversified business model of Alpha Dhabi and execution of strategy by its key group companies.

Adjusted EBITDA grew from 5.9 billion in 2021 to 17.7 billion in 2025. As already referenced, the movement in Adjusted EBITDA year on year is over 4 billion to reach the 17.7 billion for the year 2025.

Highlighting that financial performance is being driven by operational performance and not just investment returns. A full reconciliation of this movement is provided in the latest slide.

Net profit for 2025 is 15.1 billion, which is 11% above that of 2024, driven by robust performance and growth across the portfolio. Non-recurring items at 3.1 billion were lower than 3.5 reported in 2024.

The non-recurring items reflecting strong performance in Alpha Wave Venture Fund, which had 2.1 in fair value gains in 2025. Further insights into Alpha Wave will be provided later.

This slide provides the breakdown of the full movement of EBITDA year on year. We start with 17.4 billion EBITDA at the end of 2024. We then exclude items from 2025 results including a derecognition of 1.6 billion mostly related to Modon and gain on increase in equity of 0.7 for pure health and other adjustments totalling 1.2 are all also excluded. This created adjusted EBITDA of 13.6 billion at the end of 2024.

Then we added the increase in gross profit achieved across key segments totalling of 4.1 billion, resulting in adjusted EBITDA of 17.7 at the end of 2025. This increase of 30% reflects the underlying growth of operations of our portfolio companies. Finally, we add back fair value gains of just under 3.1 billion and we arrive at the EBITDA of 20.9 billion at the end of

2025. Alpha Dhabi has a robust balance sheet.

Which provides a solid foundation to grow the group going forward and deliver on the execution of its strategy. Total assets have grown significantly to now reach over 215 billion, which is another landmark achievement driven by the continued growth in the portfolio companies and investments. Total equity has reached 104 billion with owner's equity standing at 60.2 billion at the end of 2025, with the main change being the profit generated in the period. Despite increased borrowings, the group has maintained A conservative net debt to cash position. With net debt of 3.1 billion reflecting a strong cash position of 40.2 billion. Return on equity for the year is 14.2%. Net debt to EBITDA at 0.15 X is well within the target of 3X net debt to EBITDA. net debt to total equity is also 3%. Both metrics highlight the prudent financial management as well as considerable liquidity and capacity that the group has to be to deploy further Capital to support growth.

All the divisions achieved year-on-year growth and revenues, demonstrating the consistency to grow across the diversified portfolio of the groups and no reliance at one individual entity.

The diversity also demonstrates that the strategic investments are paying off.

Also, we could highlight the fact that for example, Trojan had 30% increase in their revenues,

NMDC had a 10% increase and Aldar had 47% increase in their revenues.

Segment profit has grown across the business segments, with construction division being flat year-on-year, partly as a result of the increase in corporate tax rates. Other areas are higher on performance.

As we discussed earlier, gross margin also grew reflecting the strong growth in operating profits in group companies. Services and other includes the derecognition of Modon in 2024 as well as fair value gains in 2025 driven by Alpha Wave Ventures II where the portfolio investment performed well resulting in 2.1 billion in unrealized gains. This reduction on year-on-year is mainly due to the lower non-recurring items in 2025 versus 2024. Again, the increase in profits has been achieved against the backdrop of increased corporate tax rates in UAE, making the increase in profit even. more pleasing.

In this slide, we highlight key companies in the portfolio, including publicly listed entities like

NMDC, Aldar and Pure Health. It should be noted that NMDC Group, Aldar and Trojan are subsidiaries, whereas Pure Health is classified as an associate.

NMDC Group in which Alpha Dhabi increased its shareholding further in 4Q2025, Aldar and

Pure Health are all listed on a ADX, whereas Trojan is currently a private company but a key contributor to results.

Pure Health is shown to demonstrate its scale, but as an associate, we only include 35% of its net profit, which is equal to 700 million at the end of 2025. Between them, the companies achieved over 100 billion in revenues for the first time. A milestone in the growth journey.

Thank you, Fadi. As part of our ongoing strategy to provide additional analysis on Alpha

Dhabi's portfolio, we have provided an overview of Alpha Wave Ventures to fund on this slide.

On this slide, the Alpha Wave Ventures II is a 36.7 billion Dirham fund which invests in late-stage private equity and has a global focus. Alpha Dhabi is a LP in the fund and had a 9.2 billion Dirham.

Of commitment, 2025 was a year where the portfolio saw unrealized gains of 2.1 billion dirhams, resulting in the NAV now reaching 9.8 billion dirhams. And as you can see from this slide, some of the key companies in the portfolio include.

SpaceX XI, which have recently merged, OpenAI the owner of ChatGPT, Cerebras a semiconductor company, the Boring Company, Lens Cart, Revolut and Aman Hotels to name but a few and some of the other key companies are also listed on this slide as well.

If you look at the UAE economy, some of the key indicators, the macro outlook is extremely strong. This is a result of the strategic initiatives implemented by the UAE government and supporting the continued growth of the UAE economy and they provide the great foundation for Alpha Dhabi's portfolio companies to grow some of the key highlights that we want to show you for 2026, GDP is forecast to grow between 5 and 5.6%. Non-oil GDP is forecast to grow between 4.8 to 5%.

There are moderate levels of inflation between 2% and 2.8%. The UAE also has a fiscal surplus with significant foreign wealth assets, positive FDI investment reaching record levels.

Population growth is also driving employment stability and demand for goods and services, and we have high infrastructure and Capex spend coupled with a strong private sector confidence. And all of these are reflecting in the strong results that you're seeing across

Alpha Dhabi's Portfolio.

Again, for those of you that are new to the call, just to reiterate, Alpha Dhabi is a group that is an investment holding company across eight key verticals, 250 subsidiaries. Six listed on

ADX as of the 31st of December following the sale of Modon in Q4 and over 95,000 employees within our subsidiaries, closer to 200,000 if you include the associates in their portfolio and we now have a growing presence internationally. And as of the last count, this had reached 45. This continued geographic diversification is highlighted by the continuing increase in revenue that generated outside the UAE, which grew by 20% to reach 10.6 billion or equal to 13.6% of total revenue.

However, that does mean that over 86% of revenue is still generated within the UAE and highlights the strong micro environment and tailwinds that exist across the key sectors that our portfolio companies operate in within the UAE.

We provide an overview of the company's structure and the percentage ownership that we have of all those companies and to assist on people's analysis or investors where a company is classified as a subsidiary and associate investment or joint venture within our accounting treatment

In this quarter, we increased the shareholding in NMDC through the 1.6 billion investment that we concluded to now reach 76.7% and we also highlight many of these entities within the group have been a result of the M&As and investment that Alpha Dhabi's executed since its IPO, such as joint ventures and investments as well. Most of these are currently private and for investors you're able to get exposure to them through holding an investment within

Alpha Dhabi itself.

Now we want to give an update on our guidance. So this is the first time that we're going to give an outlook for 2026 following the conclusion on the results for 2025. So in this slide we highlight the key strategic metrics which we focus on to measure the performance of the group and to explain the outlook and the key targets that we're aiming for Adjusted EBITDA which includes the profit from the subsidiaries and associates as well as dividend income.

However, it does exclude the non-recurring fair value gains in IFRS accounting for adjustments for items such as deconsolidation. of a Subsidiary. So if you look at the guidance that we gave for 25, we had said it was going to be in the range of 17 to 17.5. The result that we achieved is 17.7so we achieved over and above the upper end of that range.

If we look forward to 2026, our guidance for the year ahead is in the range of 20.5 billion to

21 billion versus the 17.7 that we've achieved in 2025. So again, we're forecasting significant growth on the outlook for the year ahead.

We continue to see strong momentum across the portfolio in 26 and beyond and we continue. If you look beyond 26, looking at 2030, we're still targeting a strong mid-teens double digit growth.

Our EBITDA margin target was in the low 20s. We achieved 22%, so we were within the range, and we continue to forecast to operate within this range as well. If we then come on to the capital deployment target at 5.5 billion, it was slightly below the 6 billion that we targeted for the year, that was a result of a transaction that we were unable to conclude in

Q3. But if you look at that 5.6 billion, it's the highest level that we've achieved so far and more than double what we delivered in the 2024, if you look forward, we are looking to increase the pace of our capital deployment up to 8 billion. So this is as accelerating our growth where we see the opportunities and we recycle the capital that we got from some of the sales from last year and including looking further ahead, as we've discussed before, we want to deploy 30 billion over the lifetime of this plan. But we do have the flexibility, given the liquidity and low level of debt. If we see the right opportunity, we can bring forward some of this investment, our return on equity for owners was 14.2% and putting this in context with all the new investment that we do, we have a minimum threshold of 15% that we want to achieve going forward.

Our net debt to EBITDA position as Fadi had highlighted earlier is only 0.15x, well within the target we've been set by our board of 3x. So again reiterating the significant headroom to support future growth by being able to increase a leverage position.

And if we come on to the sustainability of the group in terms of ESG position, we highlight, we see Alpha Dhabi that we drive this through our portfolio companies and we provide support and guidance to help them achieve some of these results, so you can see the very strong position that's been achieved including Aldar going from a BBB to an A and then

Trojan having an A position, NMDC AA and Pure Health being AAA and we want to reflect this across other companies in the portfolio to drive through best in class from an ESG

Perspective.

Some key investments and events that happened in 2025. So one of the things that we did do was announce on a dividend policy which was subsequently approved on the 12th of

January at the General Assembly. So, this is a three-year dividend Policy. This annual dividend will commence after this current financial year of 2025 that's just concluded and we are going to pay 2 billion of their dividends each year with a 5% increase in each subsequent year over this three-year period.

In addition to this, the group has also approved a share buyback programme of up to 1 billion Dirhams up until the end of December 2026. We believe that both of these initiatives that will reward shareholders and reflect confidence in our cash flow, our capital allocation discipline and the long-term growth prospects of the group.

We did talk about this transaction on the previous call, but we appreciate that some participants maybe didn't attend that call. So, on the 30th of October, the group announced that it had exited its entire stake of 8.5% in Modon holding at a value of 5.3 billion dirhams.

This transaction crystallized significant gains on our original investment and achieved an IRR of 36% on money on invested capital of 3.2x. The proceeds have enhanced Alpha Dhabi's already very strong liquidity position and further support our future growth initiatives. It also demonstrates the leadership's ability to recycle capital from its portfolio and execute and can complete significant transactions. We are of course committed to the real estate sector and we remain the largest shareholder in Aldar, the leading UAE real estate developer and we continue to be supportive of its long term strategy and you know the guidance that is given to the market recently reconfirms that.

In addition, last year on the 27th of November, the group announced that it had increased its stake in NMDC Group by an additional 10% to 76.7% following the announced AED1.6 billion acquisition of AD Ports shares. This investment confirms a confidence in the strategy of

NMDC, its leadership's ability to execute and the continued expansion of its financial performance. This was a great opportunity for the group to acquire an attractive valuation and deploy capital in sectors that we want to increase the exposure to, which is the infrastructure and energy. The financial results of NMDC for 2025, where the profit grew to 4 billion dirhams, demonstrate the continued opportunities that remain within these sectors.

So thank you very much for everyone. That concludes our presentation and we now open it for questions.

Thank you, Alpha Dhabi team for a comprehensive review of the company's FY25 financial performance and key strategic objectives. We'll now open the floor to the questions. As a reminder, please tap the Raise Hand button to ask a question. Once it is your turn, your mic will be enabled and your name will be announced. You'll then be able to unmute locally and ask your question.

We have received the first questions from the line of Muhammad Haider.

Your mic is enabled, Haider. You can ask the question.

Can you hear me? Yes, thank you. Thank you. Congrats again on the results, very impressive across the different segments. So, we have received strong guidance from the subsidiaries

ALDAR and NMDC even Pure Health, but maybe if you can shed some light on the private businesses, specifically construction, so Trojan and specific revenues were up 30% in 2025.

Do you see similar outlook in 2026 and maybe if you can?

So we can share some of the outlook, let's say the high level outlook on margins, where are we heading and if the backlog is big enough to cover top line for the next few years. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for your question. I think the pleasing thing from Alpha Dhabi's perspective is that we're seeing growth across every single company within our group. And I think if you look at Aldar, NMDC, Real estate infrastructure and Trojan being in the construction sector as well and also developing a lot of the infrastructure that you see in Abu Dhabi, you know, key projects are not just residential for Trojan. You're saying Guggenheim Museum, an iconic project for Abu Dhabi, is going to be as well completed in the near term. They recently completed the construction of the Zayed National Museum. They're looking to grow internationally. They've entered new sectors as well. Such as the power sector looking to expand their capabilities in oil and gas and we see other opportunities coming such as the data centres where we see there's going to be a lot of investment as well and this is before we even consider any M&A as well and another strategic sector that Trojan is also entering is the water sector. So, what you're seeing is continued strength when there's existing sectors but also expanding into new sectors where we see a lot of opportunities. If you look at the energy sector, we continue to aim to deploy the completion of capital through our joint venture with Adnoc Drilling Hospitality Group has got a new leadership team in place being in NCTH. They're also actively, you know, the building a new hotel in Abu Dhabi. They're looking to acquire assets internationally.

Our luxury F&B platform is also looking at new opportunities. So, what we see is very active leadership teams right across the portfolio. And in addition to that you've got the M&A that

Alpha Dhabi at the whole core level wants to deploy you look at the cadence that we've shown in terms of investment, we increased the deployment of capital in 2025 and just to put it in context, the capital that we say we want to deploy of 8 billion in 2026 is equal to 25 and 24 deployment in total.

Thank you, Derek. It's very comprehensive. And if you want to think about the net debt levels, obviously very low today, 0.15x and the target is to stay below three times, three times is really much more or bigger than where your debt levels are today.

So I mean, is it going to go up like to 1x in the medium term because that also would unlock or require a lot of a new debt issuances. So why, why have you set the target at three times when your debt levels are much lower today?

So what we want to highlight is the headroom we've got to where we can grow but still remain within the medium-term targets that the board want to give. But you've also got to consider the fact that the debt is not just at the Alpha Dhabi holding company level, it's across the portfolio. So, it'll be combination of our debt to support organic growth and any

M&A that might be executed by those portfolio companies as well. So, you're not talking about that debt being raised by 1 organization within the group is going to be across multiple companies within the group and obviously they've got to go and conclude on their own Strategy execution as well. So, all we're really doing in this slide is showing there's a longer-term target to grow, but we’re not going to get anywhere near that 3x this year. So I think this is a gradual build up to get that but also highlight. As I said in the presentation, if we see a fantastic opportunity, a right multiple inner sectors with a great leadership team and we think is going to be accretive for us in the long term, we have the flexibility to go and execute above the 8 billion that we're targeting to deploy. So, this gives it a lot of confidence that for the right opportunity, we can bring forward our plan.

That's very clear and one last thing from my end. So, we have seen a new dividend policy which is great, progressive, but if we wanted to think more of a high-level mentality thing.

If Alpha Dhabi engages in future M&A or disposals, will there be the possibility of special dividends on the table on top of what you have announced? I know it's something for the board to consider. But just to think, where would the M&A proceeds or the disposal proceeds be deployed then in the future?

So I think if you look at what we announced at the same time as the dividend policy, we announced the share buyback. So again, that is showing you the flexibility of where we stand in relation to dividend, but I think for the next three years we've had an approval for three-year policy. We will stick to that policy in the near term. So what we've tried to achieve by this is consistency and predictable shareholder returns taking into account the availability of capital, where we want to deploy it in the future and look in the longer term, we can review this and our board can decide how they want to apply the dividend policy in the future.

But any decision at that time will be based on the group's cash generation, the capital commitments and the opportunities across the portfolio.

Very useful, Derek. Thank you very much.

All right. While we wait for any questions online to come in, we can start with the ones we've received via e-mail. So the first question reads, what are the drivers of uptick in the other income for this year and what should be expected Normalized level of other income going forward?

30:46

Let me take that. So the increase in other income during the year was driven by a combination of investment-related gains, mainly through Alpha Wave, non-core asset monetization and financing and treasury-related income across the group.

So some of these elements are inherently opportunistic and market-driven and therefore not all should be, you know, can be extrapolated into future periods. Looking ahead, we would expect other income to benefit from Growth investment portfolio such as Alpha Wave

Ventures, MICAD, ADX listed stock portfolio and any other you know future investments which may happen.

Participants, just another reminder, in case there are any questions online, you can tap the raise hand button. We'll enable your mic and you can then ask a question.

Meanwhile, we'll take the other questions that we received by e-mail. Our second question reads; the gross profit margins have increased from 21% to 24% in 2025. What are the drivers of gross margin improvement and how do we look at gross margins going into 2026?

Well, the improvements in gross profits, gross margins in 2025 reflects the combination of portfolio mix, operating discipline and execution timing rather than a single off factor.

Key drivers can be improved project mix in real estate with a higher proportion of units being delivered from projects launched at stronger pricing and lower cost basis and operational efficiencies across industrial and construction businesses, particularly better procurement and scale benefits and tighter cost controls and reduce execution volatility as several businesses move from ramp up phases into more stable production or delivery cycles. As for 2026, we expect gross margins to remain in line with historic averages.

Margin performance will be influenced by project delivery, timing in real estate, the input of cost normalization and the relative contribution of higher margin operating businesses versus capital intensive projects. Now our focus is less on optimizing margin in any single year and more on obtaining sustainable margins across the business cycles of the sector.

Thank you, Fadi. Our next question reads, real estate prices in the UAE have increased significantly over the last few years. Given your exposure to Aldar and given the fact that a large supply of building and apartments will be coming online between 2026 and 2028, do you see any risk to real estate prices? Would you consider reducing stake in Aldar to cushion the impact of real estate down cycle?

34:02

OK. Thank you for that question. I'll take that one. But we do recognise that the UAE real estate prices have increased meaningfully over recent years and we are mindful of the supply pipeline that is coming between 2026 and 2028. But that said.

Our assessment remains constructive for several reasons. Demand continues to be supportive, population growth, golden visa, a lot of immigration to the UAE from other parts of the world. Business relocations as well, FDI investment at record levels, and Abu Dhabi's long term urban planning being driven by the government. The supply I think is also phased and segmented. Much of the upcoming stock targeting specific price points and I think also the end users rather than creating broad based oversupply. We think Aldar's exposure is primarily in well-located master plan developments. They're one of the leaders in the UAE and which is historically showing great resilience through the cycles. In terms of capital allocation, we do not manage our portfolio on a short-term price movement on supply and demand. We're a long-term investor, long term holder. Any decision in terms of adjusting to our exposure would be driven by relative risk adjusted returns across the sector. So, we're not taking a tactical view on our property prices in terms of outlook on our portfolio. This stage we don't see any need to make any reduction in shareholding of Aldar and quite the opposite we've we're very long on Aldar. And I think we see the performance that they've delivered across multiple years and the guidance that they've given shows that it's still got a very strong outlook to beyond 2028.

Thank you, Derek. Participants. Just another reminder, in case there are any questions, you can tap the raise hand button. We'll enable your mic and you can then ask the question.

Meanwhile, we'll take the other questions that we received via e-mail. Our last question reads, in terms of M&A, what are some of the key markets and segments the company is considering?

36:50

So if you look at our M&A strategy, which we've highlighted before, it remains highly selective and returns focused. We continue to prioritise the energy sector, which we believe is aligned with national priorities given its importance to the Country and the wider GCC region hospitality with scaling up the platform internationally, the growing targets that they have across the UAE.

For tourism, you've got new opportunities coming here that's going to boost the tourism sector in the medium to long term. Disney, the sphere. I have no doubt there'll be other iconic projects to support the tourism sector.

Infrastructure and services through our core assets such as NMDC where we did conclude the transaction to increase our exposure and we would like to see construction group Trojan also concluding some M&A to support its longer term growth as well.

Financial services with technology-enabled businesses such as Wio, the digital bank, which is another key asset within our portfolio. We are very positive on this sector. We see this is the way that the sector is going to grow in the future. So digital banking is something that we are extremely positive on. Geographically, our primary focus remains on the UAE and core regional markets, but we do remain open to international opportunities where they bring

Strategic capability, technology or platform volume rather than just purely for financial exposure. We when we look at M&A, we prioritize transactions that it will enhance the quality of our earnings.

The resilience and diversification across the portfolio and provide us with long term capital efficiency rather than deal volume. So, while we will set targets, the discipline is always there to only deploy capital where we see it's going to deliver long time shareholders.

The returns.

Thank you, Derek. Final reminder participants, in case you have any questions, you can tap the raise hand button. We'll enable your mic and you can then ask the question.

We do not have any further questions via e-mail. We'll give a moment here in case there are any final questions online.

We have no further questions at this point. I now hand over back to Alpha Dhabi's team for any closing remarks.

39:56

Thank you everyone for your time and joining the call. Also thanks to those of you that submitted questions to us, which helps us explain how the group is growing and what the outlook is in the near, near and longer term.

We have a very positive outlook across the entire portfolio for 2026 and beyond and we look forward to updating you on that on the future calls throughout the year. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone.

Thank you Alpha Dhabi team for a comprehensive review of FY25 results and for taking the questions. I also would like to thank all the participants for joining the call today. A recording of this call will be available. Please get in touch with your contact person at either

International Securities or Alpha Dhabi for access to the recording. Have a nice day everyone. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.