Dubai International Capital, an investment unit of conglomerate Dubai Holding, has sold off its last listed, liquid assets, a source familiar with the matter said, with creditors ready to queue up and see the upshot.
DIC sold investments in EADS, Sony and ICICI — for which it paid as much as $1.5 billion in total — in 2009, the source said, confirming an article that appeared on Friday in Emirati newspaper The National.
Creditors now in talks to reschedule DIC debt will be eager to know the value of assets, if any, remaining on the company’s books, and how liquid they are.
"Stakes in EADS, the maker of Airbus, the Japanese electronics giant Sony and the Indian bank ICICI were all sold after the financial crisis broke in 2008," the article said.
DIC on Thursday sought a three-month delay on debt repayment in a move that underscored the depth of the debt problems plaguing the myriad of state-linked firms known as Dubai Inc.
The DIC investment unit has a $1.25 billion loan maturing in June, according to Reuters data, and DIC has $2.6 billion in debt overall, a source familiar with the matter said.
The new delay comes in the wake of the emirate’s shock request last November to delay repayments on $26 billion of debt linked to Dubai World, and its property units.
Speculation intensified in April that DIC’s parent, Dubai Holding, had also been badly hit by the financial crisis that severely damaged Dubai’s property market, when one of its units, DHCOG, delayed its 2009 results.
