Casablanca Real Estate Giants Face Sharp Decline Amid Pandemic Slowdown

The main real estate companies on the Casablanca Stock Exchange, Addoha and Alliances, recorded negative results in the last quarter of 2020, reports L’Économiste which indicates that "the brutal drop in activity has led to a drop of more than 65% in Addoha’s turnover to 1.2 billion dirhams and 38% of that of Alliances to nearly 1.3 billion dirhams". This drastic drop would be due to "production delays following the shutdown of construction sites and the drop in sales of finished products due to the Covid-19 crisis". Moreover, the newspaper specifies, the pre-sales of the two structures are also down (7,194 units, i.e. -13% for the year for Addoha and 2,177 units, i.e. -20% for the year for ADI).

However, the newspaper notes an increase in pre-sales during the 4th quarter of 2020 (+11% for ADI and +2% for Addoha). This is driven, in the case of Addoha, by a 77% increase in pre-sales in West Africa, which allowed the company to achieve a turnover of nearly 1.6 billion dirhams for this region.

The annual production of the two companies has also fallen, the newspaper also notes, pointing out that that of ADI, for example, was reduced by 3% to 2,788 units in 2020. Nevertheless, it relativizes, the developers have maintained their land investments: 440 million dirhams in land acquisitions for ADI and the acquisition of 2 plots in Abidjan for Addoha, which seems to prefer to invest in Africa. Similarly, the two companies were able to control their debt. "Addoha managed to reduce its debt by 400 million dirhams, while ADI increased it by 294 million dirhams," the newspaper reports.