Drake & Scull International (DSI), a regional leader in engineering and construction services, has appointed Yousef Al Mulla as the new group CEO replacing Dr Fadi Feghali who will be assuming a new role with the DSI Group. He will take over the new role from August 26.

The announcement came at the DSI's board of directors meeting held today (August 14) where the company unveiled the results for the first six months.  

Al Mulla is an industry veteran who was previously the chief executive of Square General Contracting and has served as the managing director for Transemirates Contracting Company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the US and is a certified project director.

The meeting also saw the company board review the strategic objectives of a new restructuring plan that is being prepared, which will constitute an evolution of the ongoing restructuring and recapitalisation efforts that commenced in 2016 and continued throughout 2017 and 2018.

The comprehensive plan will be drawn to address the DSI and its global subsidiaries across its core and non-core geographies.

The plan will be considerate of the rights of all stakeholders including financial institutions, suppliers and vendors, as well as current and past employees of the company, to ensure business continuity of the Company as one of two UAE entities in the contracting sector listed in the local financial markets, it stated.

DSI will obtain the necessary regulatory approvals and coordinate with the competent authorities to ensure the success of the plan and its timely execution, it added.

Unveiling the results, the Dubai contractor said it has registered an overall net loss of Dh183 million, which it attributed to the performance of subsidiaries in secondary markets primarily in Oman, Qatar, and Jordan, in the second quarter.

Defaults on projects debt obligations and arrears in the secondary markets also resulted in a significant hike in finance cost and negative margin impacts, it stated.

DSI pointed out that the quarterly losses were mainly due to non-core geographies and affirmed that the underlying performance of the UAE market remained relatively stable.

The company will be calling for a general assembly meeting to set its agenda in co-ordination with the Securities and Commodities Authority in due course.-TradeArabia News Service