End of an era as Dubai’s Arabtec files for liquidation

End of an era as Dubai’s Arabtec files for liquidation

Arabtec Holding announced on Thursday that it has officially filed for liquidation following a board meeting earlier this week.

In a filing to Dubai Financial Market, Antoine Abi Rached, group general counsel and company secretary, said the company and some of its subsidiaries "have filed for insolvent liquidation pursuant to the resolutions of the shareholders of the Company passed at the general assembly meetings held on September 30 and November 30".

Board concludes that it is no longer tenable for the company to continue operating despite bid by some shareholders to reverse the liquidation process

Owing to inter-dependencies of certain of the company's subsidiaries, the application will include subsidiaries Arabtec Construction, Arabtec Constructions, Austrian Arabian Readymix Concrete Co and Arabtec Precast, the company said last month.

The announcement comes two days after Arabtec's board of directors met to work on the application to liquidate the company.

Scott Livermore (pictured below), ICAEW economic advisor and chief economist at Oxford Economics, said: "I think the important thing to look at is clearly there is excess supply and excess capacity in the construction industry and that was a problem pre-Covid. Covid has exacerbated it and highlighted the challenges more.

"But when the economy comes back, there's still going to