Palms Sports

A sports name, a broader services group

As of: 2026-08-30

Palms Sports is an Abu Dhabi-based group whose original institutional Jiu-Jitsu business has expanded into sports training, security, cleaning, education and rehabilitation. Its economic engine is the delivery of services by people under contracts, not simply ticket sales at sporting events. The financial figures in this profile cover the company and its consolidated subsidiaries; they do not describe the whole International Holding Company group.

The official ADX page checked on 30 August 2026 identifies the security as PALMS SPORTS PrJSC, ticker PALMS, on the Growth Market, with a listing date of 21 December 2020. The interim accounts explicitly describe a private joint-stock company. A listed share does not change that legal form, and the abbreviation PJSC in the financial statements should not be expanded automatically to “public joint-stock”. The issuer dates its origin as a government Jiu-Jitsu training provider to 2011.

Ownership and management

As of: 2026-08-30

The ADX shareholder screen observed on 30 August 2026 shows IHC Capital Holding LLC, displayed as اي اتش سي كابيتال القابضة ذ.م.م, with 70.98%. It also shows Abdulmunem Alsayed Mohamed Alsayed Alhashmi at 9.90% and Sublime Commercial Investment, a single-person LLC, at 7.38%. These are dated observations of the exchange screen, not a reconstructed free-float calculation. The screen does not give a separate effective date for each holding.

The accounts for 30 June 2026 identify International Holding Company PJSC as parent and Fount Trust as ultimate parent. That accounting description and the named direct shareholder on ADX are different levels of the ownership chain. The issuer website names Abdulmunam Al Hashemi as chairman and Fouad Darwish as CEO and managing director. Majority control makes related-party dealings and capital allocation important reading points; it does not itself establish unfair treatment of minority holders.

What is inside the listed group

As of: 2026-06-30

Securiguard supplies the security and cleaning platform, while Secure Recruitment supports the staffing business. The wholly owned Learn Educational Investment holding company owns Al Rabeeh Academy LLC and Al Rabeeh School LLC, each shown as wholly owned in the consolidation note. These schools are group businesses, unlike the schools at which Palms merely delivers a sports programme. The table is a selected operating map, not an exhaustive legal-entity register.

A minority percentage need not mean equity accounting: Palms consolidates Thai T-shirt Factory despite a 45% stake because it appoints a majority of directors. Conversely, Exceed Holding for Sports LLC and Al Qudra Sports Management LLC are each 50% joint ventures, accounted for separately rather than adding all their sales to group revenue. Their combined carrying value was AED 7.204 million. Several named subsidiaries are dormant; a registered entity is not automatically an operating asset or an additional revenue stream.

Programmes, facilities and operating reach

As of: 2026-08-30

The company designs and delivers training, runs events and provides facilities management. Its institutional sports work reaches schools, national-service programmes and military or security organisations. The FY2025 governance report says the School Jiu-Jitsu Programme operated across more than 285 schools and served approximately 150000 students annually. These are issuer-reported programme reach measures for 2025, not numbers of owned schools, paying retail customers or property assets.

The website reviewed in August 2026 describes more than 14000 staff including subsidiaries, but does not date that workforce count. It is a scale indicator from corporate marketing, not a verified half-year payroll or billable-headcount measure. Geographic revenue in the reviewed accounts is much more concentrated: AED 568.214 million came from the UAE and AED 0.735 million from the United States in the first half. An overseas subsidiary or an international event does not prove a material overseas revenue contribution.

How contracts turn into profit

As of: 2026-06-30

Revenue depends on winning work, retaining clients and deploying suitable staff for the contracted service. Direct staff costs were AED 408.176 million in the first half of 2026, alongside recruitment, transport and other delivery costs. The practical questions are whether contracts recover wage and mobilisation costs, whether staff remain productively deployed, and whether customers pay on time. Recognising revenue over time describes accounting for delivered service; it is not the same as guaranteed future backlog.

The largest revenue segment, guarding and cleaning, generated much less gross profit than sports coaching. Education was smaller again by sales but contributed more gross profit than guarding. A new dirham of revenue therefore has different value depending on its service mix and cost base. The segment guarding figure is AED 300.948 million before eliminations; the product/service revenue note reports AED 300.353 million for guarding, cleaning and equipment. These are different reporting cuts, not interchangeable totals.

The audited annual baseline

As of: 2025-12-31

The audited annual statements establish a group with revenue above a billion dirhams, but modest profit relative to that turnover. Sales, gross profit and owner-attributable profit all increased in 2025. Owner profit is higher than total group profit because the non-controlling interests bear a loss; the two profit definitions must not be silently swapped.

Operating cash flow improved but remained below owner profit. The annual cash-flow statement shows a substantial absorption in trade and other receivables and prepayments, partly offset by other working-capital movements. Cash purchases of property and equipment were AED 7.683 million. An asset-light service label should not obscure payroll funding, receivables or acquisition spending. EY gave an unmodified audit opinion and identified revenue recognition as a key audit matter. That is a focus of the audit, not an adverse opinion or a guarantee of future collections.

The latest half-year and the headline discrepancy

As of: 2026-06-30

In the first half of 2026, revenue and gross profit rose, while group net profit and profit attributable to owners fell. Higher gross profit did not pass through unchanged: administration costs increased, joint ventures recorded a loss and investment fair-value movements also affected earnings. Deloitte reviewed the interim information under IAS 34 with a no-matters conclusion; an interim review is narrower than an annual audit.

The results release dated 21 July reports AED 596 million revenue, whereas the reviewed statement reports AED 568.949 million. This profile uses the statutory statement and does not reconcile the difference by assumption. Management also presents AED 50.3 million “normalised” profit excluding fair-value effects; that is a management measure, not reported net profit. The difference matters because a positive operational narrative can coexist with lower shareholder earnings. A half-year result is not an annual forecast.

Collections and the quality of cash flow

As of: 2026-06-30

The half-year operating cash inflow was supported by a release of AED 68.607 million from trade and other receivables and AED 25.512 million from amounts due from related parties. These movements help explain why cash generation rose much faster than accounting profit. They are not a recurring service margin and cannot automatically be repeated in the next period. Cash capital expenditure was AED 2.237 million, separate from acquisition payments and the movement into longer-term deposits.

Gross trade receivables at the balance-sheet date were AED 369.845 million, against an expected-credit-loss allowance of AED 22.185 million. The current trade-and-other-receivable line is broader than customer invoices alone, so it should not be used unadjusted as a pure trade-collection measure. The selected interim disclosure does not provide a detailed ageing ladder. Monitoring overdue accounts, credit-loss changes and the timing of client settlements is therefore more informative than treating one strong cash-flow period as permanent improvement.

Debt, deposits and contingent obligations

As of: 2026-06-30

Bank borrowings include AED 90.000 million remaining on the Securiguard acquisition facility and AED 17.501 million on a subsidiary working-capital loan. Their final scheduled payments are 30 September 2028 and 31 October 2027 respectively. Both carry three-month EIBOR plus 1.25% annually. This links interest expense to floating rates, while principal repayments still require cash even if reported profits remain positive.

The cash-equivalent figure is smaller than the wider cash-and-bank-balances total, which includes longer-term and margin deposits. Adding them together would double count. Guarantees are contingent support for ordinary business, not a bank loan already drawn. Lease liabilities are separately stated. Consequently, a single “net cash” label would hide assumptions about deposit availability, restricted balances, leases and guarantees. The group also has employee end-of-service obligations, reflecting its large workforce; these are not the same as interest-bearing financing.

Related parties and shareholder distributions

As of: 2026-06-30

First-half revenue from related parties was AED 28.608 million. At the reporting date, amounts due from related parties were AED 28.668 million and loans to related parties AED 32.297 million. These are separate assets, not cash in the bank. The loan balances relate to Exceed Holding for Sports and Pyxis Events; the loan disclosure states a one-year repayment period and interest rates from 6.25% to 7.5%. Ordinary related-party balances and these interest-bearing loans should not be described as one homogeneous exposure.

The interim notes confirm that shareholders declared AED 0.567 per share, AED 85.050 million in total, paid on 31 March 2026. This is a completed distribution, not a newly proposed dividend or a promise for the next year. The capital base was 150 million ordinary shares at AED 1 each. Dividend capacity must be read alongside collection needs, scheduled borrowing repayments and acquisition commitments; historic payment alone is not a sustainable-yield guarantee.

What can weaken the business

As of: 2026-06-30

Contract loss or a poorly priced renewal can remove revenue while leaving recruitment, staffing and transport costs difficult to adjust quickly. Security and cleaning have a thin gross-profit cushion; wage increases or underutilisation can have a disproportionate effect. In schools and sports programmes, safe delivery and service quality are commercial necessities, so operating scale is useful only if supervision and training standards keep pace.

Acquisitions add integration and impairment risk, and investment securities introduce market volatility unrelated to the underlying training workload. Receivables, related-party recoverability and the availability of deposits affect liquidity. The selected disclosures do not establish a complete current backlog, client-retention rate, largest-customer concentration or billable-workforce utilisation. Their absence limits the precision of a forward earnings view. These are questions for further disclosure, not evidence that contracts have failed or that losses are inevitable.

Expansion: completed steps versus ambitions

As of: 2026-07-21

The 2025 governance report records a three-year AED 60 million renewal with a UAE sovereign entity in April. This is a historical contract award, not the remaining backlog at the profile date or revenue earned entirely in one year. It also describes wider school-programme delivery, digital monitoring, community fitness initiatives and rehabilitation development. Those activities explain how Palms seeks to deepen existing client relationships as well as enter adjacent services.

A concrete 2026 addition was the Thai T-shirt Factory stake acquired on 12 February for AED 1.469 million. The interim note says it had contributed no revenue or profit since acquisition, with purchase-price allocation provisional. Management’s July priorities include efficiency, technology, human capital and expansion across sports, education, healthcare and security. These statements indicate direction, not a quantified profit forecast or proof that every proposed initiative has been completed. Future assessment should connect each expansion to its funding, operational contribution and cash return.

Official contacts and how to update this profile

As of: 2026-08-30

The issuer’s public contact page gives its visitor address as floor 2, Building 12, Eastern Ring Road, Al Muntazah, Ministries Complex, Abu Dhabi, UAE. The interim financial statements separately give registered postal address P.O. Box 39877, Abu Dhabi. A visitor address and a registered postal address serve different purposes. The general mailbox below is a published corporate contact, not a personal or inferred investor-relations address.

Annual statements provide the audited baseline; the reviewed interim report controls the latest financial figures and consolidation perimeter. Official ADX pages supply the dated market and shareholder observations. Website scale descriptions and management plans remain attributed to the company. This profile should be refreshed when new financial statements, ownership changes or material contract and acquisition disclosures appear. Original documents remain on official source sites; this article provides interpretation and links, not a substitute for reading the filing or an investment recommendation.

Sources

1. S1 · FY2025 audited consolidated statements · 2026-01-20
2. S2 · First-half 2026 reviewed consolidated statements · 2026-07-21
3. S3 · FY2025 corporate governance report, filed 4 March 2026 · 2026-03-04
4. S4 · First-half results release: management context and revenue discrepancy · 2026-07-21
5. S5 · ADX: PALMS official market profile, observed 30 August 2026 · 2026-08-30
6. S6 · ADX: shareholders and board, observed 30 August 2026 · 2026-08-30
7. S7 · Issuer: about the business and management, undated page checked 30 August 2026 · 2026-08-30
8. S8 · Issuer: public contact page checked 30 August 2026 · 2026-08-30