Posts AED130 mn 9M profit; negative equity at AED3.85 bn
DUBAI/November 14-2020: The auditors of the financially-battered Drake & Scull International (DSI), Ernst & Young (E&Y), Middle East has yet again registered ‘Disclaimer of Conclusion’ on the company’s financial statements as of September 30, 2020.
E&Y had expressed Disclaimer of Conclusion on the company’s accounts during last year too.
Meanwhile, DSI has reported a net profit of AED129.83 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020.
The nine-month profit was backed by a gain on disposal of a subsidiary amounting to AED354 million. The company had reported a loss of AED1.2 billion for the similar period last year. DSI, a regional market leader in the integrated design, engineering and construction disciplines of engineering (MEP), Water & Power, and Oil & Gas, has reported a loss of AED69.94 million for the three months ending September 30, 2020 compared with a loss of AED372.54 million for the same period last year.
Disclaimer of Conclusion
According to auditing experts, expressing Disclaimer of Conclusion on a company’s financial statements is akin to the auditors washing their hands of the accounts presented by the company in order to distance themselves from committing on the veracity of the financial statements.
“We were unable to obtain sufficient appropriate evidence to form basis of a review conclusion on the accompanying interim condensed consolidated financial statements of the Group as of September 30, 2020. Accordingly, we do not express a conclusion on these interim condensed consolidated financial statements, “Ernst & Young (E&Y), DSI’s auditors stated.
E&Y statement added that considering there was no review report issued on the interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the three-month and nine-month periods ended September 30, 2019, the auditors have stopped short of making any conclusion.
“And hence, we were unable to ascertain whether any misstatements in those balances would have had a material impact on the comparative information included in the interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the three month and nine month period ended September 30, 2020,” the E&Y stated further
Huge accumulated losses
Accumulated losses have been reduced from AED5 billion as of December 31, 2019 to AED4.88 billion as of September 30, 2020.
Thus the total negative equity has improved from AED 3.99 billion as of December 31, 2019 to AED3.85 billion as of September 30, 2020.
Munir Mansour, CEO of DSI, said that as per the shareholders’ approval, the organisational restructuring is progressing well especially after the sale of some of the loss-making entities.
“We are making continuous efforts to acquire more projects, whether in UAE or overseas, in addition to the on-going operations in Tunisia, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria and Germany,” Mansour added.