Empower also said that ‘no interim dividend has been declared for the three-month period and six-month periods ended 30 June 2024’. On DFM, the Empower stock is trading at Dh1.58, down 4.8 per cent in early trading. The company had paid out Dh850 million for 2023, including Dh425 million as interim dividend.
In the first-half, the DFM-listed company’s total connected cooling capacity increased to over 1.53 million RT (refrigerated ton) with the addition of over 20,000 RT. And last April, it signed an agreement with the Al Habtoor Group to supply what will be one of the world’s tallest towers with 7,200 RT. (This is equivalent to 75 per cent of the peak cooling capacity at Burj Khalifa).
The Al Habtoor Tower, expected to have a user base of over 5,000 people, will start receiving Empower’s services from next year. Also, there was an increase in the volume of consumption of its district cooling services (Refrigeration Ton hours) by 20 per cent during the first six months of 2024 ‘due to the addition of DXB Airport and rising demand from its well-diversified customer base’.
In all, 56 new contracts were entered into during the period to provide more than 58,300 RT and for a total contracted capacity of more than 1.72 million RT.