Emirates City Forum

ossy, it seems that everyone of us, who goes to Giga building next to Oasis Center gets the same treatment by Aslam, who is very nice and understanding, I must admit, but all he keeps saying is, it'll happen soon and he even told me in early december that construction will resume in spring and first they will use the company money before asking for further payments. The only thing they are clear about: we cannot cancel and get our investment back. They claim act of god, but this is the problem: in a society, where everything is "inshallah" everything is an act of god. In my book this is a deep misunderstanding of the holy Qoran and it just leads to people doing nothing as everything is being decided by god.
I will visit their offices in April again and trust me I'll be less comprehensive this time around.

S&P downgrades ETA Star group on debt outlook
Bradley Hope
Last Updated: March 18. 2010 9:46PM UAE / March 18. 2010 5:46PM GMT
Standard & Poor’s has downgraded the credit rating of the ETA Ascon Star Group, which has large debts coming due next year, and the company has in turn ended its relationship with the ratings agency.

S&P lowered the engineering and property conglomerate’s long-term corporate rating to “CCC” from “minus BB”. ETA Star “faces material upcoming maturities and is likely to have lower than expected liquidity resources throughout 2010”, the agency said. ETA Star also asked S&P to cancel its rating altogether, the agency said.

ETA Star executives declined to comment yesterday.

The “CCC” rating means that S&P believes the company will have difficulty meeting its obligations unless its business or the prevailing economic conditions improve.

ETA Star, which has subsidiaries in industries such as mining, health care and property development, has a US$300 million (Dh1.1 billion) senior unsecured bank loan coming due in 2012. The joint borrowers are Emirates Trading Agency, ETA Star Holdings, and Associated Construction and Investments, according to S&P.

In a note last month accompanying an earlier downgrade, the S&P analyst Mohammed Fayek said that ETA Star’s debt profile was “largely short-term” and that the company would have trouble meeting its obligations.

“Although we consider ETA’s operations to be well diversified and predominantly conducted with large, well-established or government-related entities, we believe that the ongoing economic slowdown is having an adverse effect on demand and pricing in the group’s main markets in the Gulf Co-operation Council, India and China,” Mr Fayek wrote at the time.

In 2008, 55 per cent of ETA Star’s revenue came from the Emirates, but the sharp slowdown across the conglomerate’s most important industries was likely to harm its financial position.

While the property development arm of ETA Star has delivered several buildings in the past year, including Liberty House near the Dubai International Financial Centre, it has eight projects still under development, according to the Real Estate Regulatory Agency’s registry.

ETA Star was founded in 1973 as a joint venture between the Al Ghurair family of Dubai and Amana Investments of Hong Kong, the company’s website says.

Good Day Istukgent,

Did you mean Star GIGA is in the Craps Game or the sea creature Craps? I assume they are playing the investors cheating game and not the Craps game you are refering to you.

Do you have any input for their project Goldcrest Dreams, appreciate if you can share the same.

Jasau, good calculation.
I would say this is the minimum amount as many investors have paid more than this amount. If you add toher ETA projects in ajman, GCD1, etc, th amount will be four times higher than the calculated.
Seems like they will disappear, they would definatly not be happy to refund the amount to investors!
I an totally disappointed and could not find any soluton to getting my investment back, which I assue would be true for most of the ajman investors.

I HAVE BEEN TO STAR GIGA OFFICE LAST MONTH.
THEY STILL HAVE NOT OPENED ESCROW ACCOUNT.
I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY CAN GET AWAY FROM ARRA.
PORJECT WAS MEANT TO COMPLETE THIS YEAR ---THEY AHVE NOT EVEN STATRED PROJECT.
WE MUST ALL CLAIM MONIES ALONG WITH THE INTEREST PAYMENT.

KIRIT

The whole place is like a ghost town.Buildings abandoned, deserted,and no living human beings to be seen..Yes there are emaciated looking camels roaming around.

Any person who has filled a law suit aganist Star GIGA for reund, please do let us know as we can all join hands and try our luck.