Abu Dhabi's Aldar Properties reported a net profit of Dh618 million ($168.25 million) in the three months to March 31, as against a profit of Dh453.4 million ($123.4 million) in the corresponding period of 2014, marking a 36 per cent rise.

The state-linked developer of Abu Dhabi's Formula One circuit had reported higher profits in six of the preceding seven quarters.

Sico Bahrain forecast Aldar would make a quarterly profit of Dh509.2 million ($138.6 million).

Aldar's first-quarter revenue was Dh1.38 billion ($378 million), down from Dh1.72 billion ($468 million) a year earlier, but direct costs dropped by a bigger margin - to Dh737.5 million ($200.7 million) from Dh1.37 billion ($373 million) in the prior-year period.

As well as building and selling property, Aldar also leases residential, retail and office units and has a portfolio of 2,500 hotel rooms, defining these as sources of recurring revenue.

Quarterly gross profit from this recurring revenue jumped 61 per cent year-on-year to Dh368 million ($100 million), a rise Aldar said was a main driver of its net profit increase.

The company booked property sales and reservations of Dh1.2 billion ($326.7 million) in the first quarter, while its quarterly gross profit margin was 47 per cent, up from 20 per cent in the prior-year period.

Aldar said it reduced its gross debt to Dh8.2 billion ($2.2 billion) from Dh9.2 billion ($2.5 billion) at 2014-end after Abu Dhabi's government made a scheduled payment to the company. This helped cut Aldar's net debt-to-equity ratio to 16 per cent from 25 per cent at the end of last year.

State-owned fund Mubadala Development Company owns 30 per cent of Aldar, Reuters data shows. – Reuters