Stringent COVID-19 related restrictions have had a severe impact on Makkah’s real estate, retail and hospitality sectors JEDDAH: The Jabal Omar Development Company (JODC) reported losses for the third quarter this year of SR270 million ($72 million). The real estate development company’s losses narrowed to SR345 million at the end of the first nine months of 2021, compared to losses of SR918 million achieved during the same period in 2020, according to a filing. The company said that the decrease in losses was in part down to an increase in other revenues due to the sale of a plot of land at the Jabal Omar project, which was announced in late 2020. The company also said that share- holders’ equity, after excluding minority interests, at the end of the period amounted to SR6.64 billion, compared to SR7.4 billion at the end of the same period of the previous year. The accumulated losses at the end of the current period amounted to SR2.47 billion, or 26.6 percent of the company’s capital. The firm attributed the result to tax provisions and an increase in expenses after the expiry of pandemic-related waivers on some financial charges. Revenue for the first nine months of this year was also slightly lower on the year. “The stringent COVID-19 related restrictions on travel and tourism in the Kingdom have had a severe impact on Makkah’s real estate, retail and hospitality sectors,” said Chief Executive Khalid Al-Amoudi. “As such, our core operating assets continue to be severely impacted by low occupancy and footfall levels.” The company embarked on a plan this year to fix its heavily indebted balance sheet. “We are currently in the middle of restructuring more than 15 billion riyals in liabilities, with the aim of decreasing our total liabili- ties and improving our liquidity by reducing our debt servicing levels by over 50 percent,” said Chief Financial Officer Wael El-Turk. Jabal Omar is looking at an aggregate de-leveraging of 3 billion riyals by mid-2022. “What we’re doing is seeking debt restructuring or some upsizing in some places and de-leveraging mainly in others,” El-Turk said. “We expect the majority of the program to be completed by the first half of 2022, after which we will begin to see its positive impact reflected on our financial performance.”