Amer Group made EGP 126.79 million net profits during the first half of 2012, a 37.1 percent decline compared to EGP 201.435 million in the same period last year. Riad Refaat, Investors Relations Manager at the company, explained that the decline in profits is understandable given the current economic circumstances, particularly in the real estate sector. Refaat justified the decline during the first half by the diminished delivery rates during this period compared to the same period in 2011. Rehab Taha, Real Estate Sector Analyst at Prime Financial Services, maintained however that despite Amer's decline during the first half, results were beyond Prime's expectations. Prime expected that Amer would net only EGP 123.7 million in profits. She added that Prime expected Amer to be late in delivering its two important projects (Porto Marina and Porto Sukhna). Prime also expected that restaurants revenues during the first half of 2012 would decline. In the first quarter this year Amer Group achieved EGP 61.7 million in net profits, a 54 percent decrease compared to EGP 133.9 million in net profits during the first quarter of last year. Last month, the company's general assembly approved decreasing the capital that resulted from writing off treasury shares that were purchased more than a year ago, amounting to 14 million treasury stock.
