United Securities Keeps Empower at Hold Post-Q2 Results

04:18 AM EDT, 08/31/2026 (MT Newswires) -- United Securities reiterated its investment view on Emirates Central Cooling Systems (DFM:EMPOWER), d/b/a Empower, following the company's second-quarter report. "We see a balanced risk-reward profile, with resilient margins and a well-covered dividend providing support against near-term topline deceleration. Empower trades at 14.4x 2026e P/E and 10.9x EV/EBITDA, while offering a projected 2026e dividend yield of 5.5%. At the current price of AED 1.58, the stock implies 6.0% upside to our AED 1.67 target price. Accordingly, we retain our HOLD rating," analysts said on Sunday. For the second quarter, Empower's net profit edged up 0.6% annually to 259 million Emirati dirhams, which was "broadly in line" with United Securities' forecast. Revenue, meanwhile, declined 2.7% year over year to 888.8 million dirhams, missing the research firm's estimate by 16%. "The 2Q26 revenue miss highlights that consumption volatility can outweigh the stability of contracted demand charges over individual periods. However, we believe the underlying growth trajectory remains intact, supported by Dubai's robust real estate pipeline, (with 1H26 real estate sales reaching AED 286bn, the second-strongest first half on record), and the emirate's ambition to increase district cooling penetration from 25% to 40% by 2030," analysts said.