Barwa made a nine-month profit of 775.6 million riyals, the company said in a statement to the bourse website on Thursday, on higher property sales and as rental revenues more than doubled.

Barwa is the Gulf Arab region’s third largest developer by market capitalization and an affiliate of the state’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, which holds a 45 percent stake in the company.

The company was hit hard by the region-wide real estate slump but Qatar is ensuring its key property firms weather the global crisis by pushing through defensive mergers and using the real estate arm of the sovereign wealth fund to invest in them.

In April, Barwa said it would continue to sell assets in 2010 and 2011 to meet its obligations after it repaid 4.3 billion riyals in Islamic financial facilities.

At the same time, it bought the Park House development in London in June for $371 million, taking advantage of low valuations abroad. The acquisition was the first major wholly-owned investment made by Barwa in the UK.

In June, Jones Lang LaSalle said Qatar was likely to be the largest source of capital to global real estate markets in 2010.

The developer’s shares rose 1.3 percent as at 0725 GMT on the Doha bourse Thursday.