UPDATE 1-Sorouh Real Estate Q2 profit falls 75.5 pct

ABU DHABI, July 22 (Reuters) - Sorouh Real Estate SOR.AD posted a second-quarter net profit of 150.98 million dirhams ($41.08 million), down 75.5 percent from the year-earlier period, driving shares lower.

Abu Dhabi's second-largest property developer by market value said it earned net profit of 281.42 million dirhams in the first half of the year, compared with 977.61 million dirhams a year earlier, the firm said in a statement on Wednesday.

Sorouh reported a net profit of 687.04 million dirhams in the second quarter of 2008.

Revenues for the half of 2009 fell to 1.3 billion dirhams, compared to 1.69 billion dirhams in 2008. Second quarter revenues were down to 978 million dirhams from 1.1 billion dirhams in the same period last year.

The company said results were in line with its expectations and reflected its strategy to focus on "cash conservation" and "management of operating costs".

The company said its Abu Dhabi developments remained on schedule and expected to see a "gradual quarter-on-quarter improvement" on the back of unit sales and rental income from a number of its projects.

Developers across the United Arab Emirates have suffered the impact of the global financial crisis which put an end to a six-year construction boom.

The downturn resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of projects in the recent months while valuations and sales fell.