National Central Cooling Company

A utility business beyond a single cooling plant

As of: 2025-12-31

National Central Cooling Company PJSC, traded on DFM as TABREED, supplies chilled water to buildings and districts. Founded in 1998, it operates infrastructure that lets customers outsource cooling rather than install and manage separate systems. The issuer is Tabreed, not Mubadala, ENGIE or another district-cooling operator; the shareholders’ wider assets do not belong to this listed group.

Cooling is the core activity, but the legal group also constructs secondary networks, operates and maintains plants, manufactures pre-insulated pipes and provides design, supervision, water-treatment and energy-efficiency services. These activities connect the plant to the customer and support operation over time. A cooling network’s usefulness depends on reliable delivery and occupied customer developments, not merely on its rated capacity.

Shareholders and governance

As of: 2025-12-31

The annual ownership snapshot at 31 December 2025 identifies Mubadala at 41.9% and ENGIE at 40.0%. Mubadala holds shares through two entities; ENGIE’s holding is through GDF International. These are dated ownership disclosures, not a current foreign-investment limit or a measurement of shares available to trade.

The June 2026 financial statements are signed by chairman Dr. Bakheet Al Katheeri, interim chief executive Dr. Yousif Al Hammadi and chief financial officer Adel Al Wahedi. These roles describe the reporting-date governance record; the interim designation is retained. Large strategic shareholders provide context, but do not eliminate financing, project or minority-shareholder risk.

The group is not one ownership perimeter

As of: 2025-12-31

The annual subsidiary schedule distinguishes controlled operations from investments accounted for using the equity method. Selected holdings are shown below at 31 December 2025, not as a comprehensive current subsidiary register. Full consolidation does not mean that Tabreed owns every economic interest: outside shareholders participate where holdings are below 100%.

The value-chain subsidiaries include wholly owned Gulf Energy System Company LLC for secondary networks and Tasleem Metering and Payment – Collection Sole Proprietorship LLC for billing and collection. Emirates Preinsulated Pipes Industries LLC is 65.2%-owned. Saudi Tabreed and Arctic are separately classified investments, not additional wholly owned subsidiaries. Their full revenues or cooling capacity must not be added to consolidated accounting amounts.

Networks, customers and operating measures

As of: 2026-06-30

The H1 release describes a portfolio of 99 plants at 30 June 2026: 81 in the UAE, six in Saudi Arabia, eight in Oman, one in Bahrain, two in India and one in Egypt. This is a portfolio footprint, not a count of wholly owned facilities. The annual map explicitly presents Saudi capacity at the full asset level while Tabreed holds 21.8% in the associate.

The issuer’s reported connected capacity was 1.58 million refrigeration tons at June 2026, with 4,500 RT of organic additions during the half-year. RT measures cooling capacity; refrigeration ton hours, or RTh, measure consumption. Neither is electrical generation capacity. Headline portfolio scale must therefore be read separately from ownership and financial consolidation.

The customer locations named in the release include Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall, Dubai Metro, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Yas Island and Jabal Omar in Makkah. These are developments served by cooling operations, not buildings owned by Tabreed. They show exposure to residential, commercial, cultural and transport demand rather than a property-development portfolio.

Annual and interim financial snapshot

As of: 2026-06-30

All amounts in the table are reported AED thousands, with no rescaling. Annual figures cover twelve months; H1 figures cover the six months ended 30 June, not Q2 alone. FY2025 consolidated accounts are audited under IFRS; the interim consolidated accounts are unaudited and reviewed under IAS 34. The annual audit does not make the interim period audited.

Revenue increased in both comparisons, but operating profit and profit attributable to shareholders declined. The annual accounts show higher finance costs and lower contribution from associates and joint ventures; the H1 issuer release also links profit pressure to refinancing and acquisition-related funding costs. Stable service demand is therefore not the same as stable earnings for shareholders.

Group profit includes non-controlling interests. The separate shareholder-profit row must be used when discussing earnings belonging to owners of the listed issuer. The annual and half-year columns are separate period comparisons, not a continuous quarterly series, and H1 should not simply be doubled to manufacture an annual forecast.

Capital, liquidity and debt maturities

As of: 2026-06-30

Cash and bank balances were AED 660,820 thousand at 30 June 2026, versus AED 654,990 thousand at December 2025. The June balance sheet separately reports AED 6,128,979 thousand of equity attributable to the company’s shareholders. Cash is a balance at a date, not cash generated during the half-year and not an amount freely distributable after every obligation.

The annual debt note records a USD 500 million bond due on 31 October 2027 and a USD 700 million green sukuk due on 5 March 2030. These are original issue amounts and contractual maturity dates, not the balance-sheet carrying values. Financing dates should be monitored alongside investment needs; the presence of long-lived infrastructure does not remove refinancing exposure.

Completed acquisitions versus future concessions

As of: 2025-12-31

The PAL Cooling acquisition completed on 9 October 2025 through the Arctic structure. Tabreed holds 50% of Arctic Holdco SPV LTD and invested AED 1.19 billion to fund the transaction. The annual accounts apply the equity method to this investment: it is a completed acquisition at the joint-venture level, not full consolidation of PAL into Tabreed.

Palm Jebel Ali is a different structure. The annual report describes a 51% Tabreed / 49% Dubai Holding Investments concession, planned capacity of 250,000 RT and estimated capital expenditure of AED 1.5 billion. These are concession and investment plans, not completed connected capacity or already realised revenue. The 51%-held PJA entities appear in the subsidiary schedule.

These two developments create different paths to earnings and cash. The PAL investment depends on joint-venture performance and distributions, while the concession depends on development, construction and customer connection schedules. They should not be combined into a single number labelled current owned operating capacity.

Strategy and cash allocation

As of: 2026-06-30

The company’s H1 release emphasises selective growth in the UAE and aligning project execution with customer delivery schedules. For readers, the central issue is whether new connections and acquired interests generate cash after operating costs, financing and further investment. A larger secured pipeline alone is not proof that near-term shareholder earnings will rise.

The business combines long-lived cooling infrastructure with operating services. Existing networks can provide recurring demand, while additional projects require capital before their full earnings contribution appears. Sustainability benefits are issuer claims unless separately demonstrated; this profile does not certify avoided emissions or promise an investment return.

Risks that matter to the business

As of: 2026-06-30

Financing costs, the pace of customer connections and execution of major concessions are material sensitivities. Weather affects consumption, and property delivery affects when capacity becomes revenue-producing. These exposures coexist with the essential nature of cooling.

Joint-venture cash cannot be treated as the parent’s unrestricted cash. Acquisitions also introduce goodwill and intangible assets whose value depends on future performance. The PAL accounting note specifically describes impairment testing of the investment. A useful follow-up is to track financing, distributions and commissioning separately rather than infer success from gross portfolio expansion.

This is a business profile, not a valuation or a buy/sell recommendation. No share-price target, assumed project completion or current trading-liquidity estimate is included.

Official contacts and source dates

As of: 2026-08-31

Official website and financial-report archive: https://www.tabreed.ae/en/investor-relations. Investor-relations email: ir@tabreed.ae. The annual report publishes the IR telephone +971 2 202 0400 and registered postal address P.O. Box 32444, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The address is a registered postal address, not a claim about a visitor office.

Sources were checked on 31 August 2026 GST. Ownership and the selected legal structure are dated December 2025; interim financials and operating disclosures cover June 2026. The IR page lists H1 2026 as the newest interim results found in this check. The telephone and postal address retain their annual-report date; the separate contact page could not be refreshed, so those details are not presented as independently reconfirmed today.

Sources

1. S1 · Tabreed integrated annual report 2025 · 2025-12-31
2. S2 · Tabreed interim condensed consolidated financial statements, H1 2026 · 2026-06-30
3. S3 · Tabreed H1 2026 results release · 2026-08-10
4. S4 · Tabreed investor relations · 2026-08-31