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11:15 PM IST
The real estate affiliate of billionaire investor Warren Buffett`s Berkshire Hathaway Inc said on Sunday it will expand its brokerage operations into the Middle East by opening an office in Dubai.
It said it also plans to open a second United Arab Emirates office in Abu Dhabi "within a year".
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Gulf Properties will be led by Chairman Ihsan Husein Al Marzouqi and Chief Executive Officer Phil Sheridan, a company statement said. They will have a team of 30 advisers and support staff.
"Dubai has been a top priority for our network`s global expansion as it represents innovation among world leaders and is a top global center for trade, logistics, tourism and finance," said Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chairman, Gino Blefari.
The company`s expansion into Dubai comes despite a downturn which has seen property prices fall by more than a quarter from a peak in mid-2014, hurting earnings of the emirate`s top developers and forcing construction and engineering firms to cut jobs and halt expansion plans.
S&P Global Ratings said in February Dubai residential property prices will fall another 5-10 percent this year due to a continued gap between supply and demand, before steadying in 2020.
House prices in the highly diversified economy of Dubai in 2009-2010 plunged more than 50 percent from their peak. This forced Dubai to seek a $20 billion bailout from oil-rich Abu Dhabi to escape a debt crisis, which had threatened to force some state-linked companies to default on billions of dollars of debt.
(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
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