Aldar Properties, the second-largest UAE real estate developer by market value, posted a 66.6 percent rise in second-quarter net profit to 456.8 million dirhams ($124.4 million).

Earnings per share in the first six months of the year were 0.53 dirhams, compared with 0.31 dirhams a year earlier, Aldar chief financial officer Shafqat Ali Malik told Reuters.

The company completed more than Dh2 billion of developments in the first half of the year, he said.

"The main contributor to the increase in net profits during first half 2007 was the valuation of the investment properties," Malik said, without elaborating.

Assets rose 221.6 percent to 16.4 billion dirhams on June 30, compared with 5.1 billion dirhams on December 31, 2006, Malik said.

Aldar raised Dh17 billion through convertible Islamic bonds and a syndicated loan in the first half of 2007, Malik said, adding the firm planned to continue borrowing.

The company raised $2.53 billion in the world's third-biggest Islamic bond this year to fund projects worth $50 billion in Abu Dhabi over the next five to 10 years.

The company will also spend at least $1 billion on acquisitions in markets which could include Western Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore to balance shareholder risk, chief executive Ronald Barrott told Reuters in March.

Aldar made a net profit of 274.26 million dirhams in the second quarter of last year and 496.18 million in the first quarter of 2007. - Reuters