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Emaar US unit to cut jobs due to slowdown

DUBAI - The U.S. unit of Emaar Properties EMAR.DU, John Laing Homes, will cut jobs and review operations due to the credit crisis and global economic downturn, a company official said in remarks published on Saturday.

The layoffs will run across John Laing Homes’ operations, focused mainly in Southern California and Colorado, which have been hit hard by the financial meltdown, the daily reported.

“John Laing is reviewing its operations due to market conditions,” Linda Mamet, a company spokeswoman told the paper, declining to say how many jobs would be cut.

“We have made a reduction in force this week and we’ll have more information shortly about the review of the operations,” she said.

In the remarks published by the newspaper Mamet did not give a figure for the number of employees at the U.S. unit.

“John Laing Homes, one of the largest privately held homebuilders in the United States, is currently reviewing all potential options to meet its capital requirements,” the company said in a statement sent to Reuters by Emaar late on Saturday.

Dubai-based Emaar missed analysts’ forecasts with a 3.3 percent fall in profit in the third-quarter ended Sept. 30, as it took a 750 million dirham ($204.2 million) writedown on its U.S. unit.

John Laing is suffering from the pains of a U.S. mortgage crisis triggered last year by defaults on subprime mortgages. Emaar bought John Laing for $1.05 billion in June 2006 as the U.S. housing market was peaking after five years of expansion.

Laing’s Mamet said the firm was also deciding whether to halt sales on projects and shut down some of its U.S. offices.

Work has already stopped on a 180-unit condominium building in Hollywood called the Madrone, media reports in California said.

Emaar Chairman Mohamed Ali Alabbar said in November the developer could could make job cuts as it looks to weather the impact of the global financial crisis that has hit the once-booming real estate sector of the Gulf emirate.