Category: Banking & Finance

The $600 million loan which Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corp (Empower) is using to back its acquisition of Palm Utilities is being syndicated to other lenders, three banking sources said on Thursday.Dubai district cooling firm Empower announced last month that it was buying Palm Utilities from a unit of Dubai World for $500 million, the latest in a series of acquisitions which have seen assets shuffled between companies ultimately owned by Dubai's government or the emirate's ruler.Empower is funding the

A massive cyber attack from unknown sources that has been spamming bitcoin exchanges is highlighting some of the dangers people can encounter when they exchange cash for digital currencies like the bitcoin, experts said on Wednesday.The attack, which is technically known as a distributed denial of service attack, involved thousands of phantom transactions, forcing at least three of the online platforms that store bitcoins and trade them for traditional currencies to halt withdrawals of bitcoins until they can determine which

Deutsche Bank AG agreed to hand over documents related to a probe into the operations of its Dubai-based wealth management division after being taken to court by the emirate’s financial free zone regulator.The Dubai Financial Services Authority began proceedings against the Frankfurt-based lender at the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts on Oct. 31 in an attempt to force the bank to comply with its investigation. Deutsche Bank agreed to submit the documents within 28 days and pay the regulator’s costs,

JP Morgan has cut its correspondent banking relationship with Emirates NBD, Dubai's largest bank, as part of a global review of its business, sources familiar with the matter said.In a memo to staff last year, the U.S. bank said it would scale back its relationships with foreign banks in order to comply with regulatory pressure to tighten risk controls.As part of this process, the bank has severed relationships in its cash management business in the Middle East, and has not

Crucial factors such as banking secrecy, diverse investment products and services have contributed to Switzerland remaining a premier offshore haven for the Middle Eastern investors, according to a leading Swiss-based asset manager specializing in the Middle Eastern region.William Spencer, at WT Capital Management S.A, says there is an increase in demand for wealth management solutions from Middle East region, with a surge in requests for custodian services and tailored structured products. He attributes this to competitive pricing, enhanced return and

[caption id="attachment_3062" align="alignleft" width="300"] The Gate at DIFC[/caption]Lazard Asset Management (LAM) said it would expand its Middle East operations by hiring the former regional asset management team of ING Group NV, which resigned from the Dutch firm in Dubai earlier this week.A subsidiary of U.S.-based Lazard, LAM will focus on equities in the Middle East and North Africa and frontier markets with the Dubai-based team of six.Farah Foustok will be managing director and senior executive officer at LAM's Dubai office,

ING Group NV, the Dutch financial services conglomerate, said on Monday it was closing its Middle East asset management operation, based in Dubai, after the team there resigned.The closure is in line with ING's restructuring drive, which involves only maintaining asset management operations in countries where it has a strong insurance presence, Karl Hanuska, a spokesman for ING Investment Management in the Netherlands, said by telephone."We will stop the main equities activity and turn Dubai into a sales office," Hanuska

Emirates NBD, Dubai's largest lender, missed analysts' forecasts despite an 8 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit as a surge in the amount set aside by the lender to meet loan losses offset increased net interest income.The lender, 55.6-percent owned by state fund Investment Corp of Dubai, made a net profit of 673 million dirhams ($183.2 million) in the three months to Dec. 31, a statement from the bank said on Monday, compared with 626 million dirhams in the same

Bond issuance from the Gulf Arab region is set to surge next year on the back of heavy infrastructure spending and refinancing needs, while the Abu Dhabi sovereign may return to the market after an absence of nearly five years.The region's issuance of conventional bonds and sukuk fell to $28.97 billion this year from $36.90 billion in 2012, according to IFR, a Thomson Reuters unit.That was partly because of jitters about the U.S. Federal Reserve's plans to cut its

Emad Mansour, a veteran Gulf Arab banker, is planning to set up an investment bank in Dubai's tax-free financial zone, he said on Sunday, joining a growing list of regional bankers taking advantage of a revival in deal making and a retreat by big investment banks.Mansour, who has about 20 years of investment banking experience in the region, was most recently the chief executive of Doha-based Qatar First Bank (QFB), a sharia-compliant investment bank, which he helped set up in

Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT), a global insurance provider, has entered into a strategic partnership Insure Direct, a Dubai-based insurance brokerage, by acquiring a stake in the UAE firm.The strategic partnership adds considerable international and specialist expertise to Insure Direct’s capabilities and will enable Insure Direct to satisfy significant and growing demand from clients in several key sectors, a statement said.Insure Direct’s operations in Dubai, Bahrain and Qatar will be rebranded in due course, it added.They will work closely with JLT's

Emirates NBD  is looking for acquisition targets in Turkey as Dubai's largest lender scouts for opportunities beyond its home market, despite an improving economic environment within the emirate, its top executive said.ENBD, which completed in June the purchase of BNP Paribas'  Egyptian assets for $500 million, has been looking to diversify beyond Dubai after a real estate market crash in 2008-2010 severely impacted the bank.The lender aims for 20 percent of its revenues to come from overseas markets in five

Dubai's largest bank Emirates NBD has put its remaining 15 percent stake in Union Properties up for sale, the lender's chief financial officer said on Thursday.The bank booked a gain of 191 million dirhams ($52.00 million) from the sale of a 32.6 percent stake in Union Properties during the first nine months of 2013.Its remaining stake is now held as "available for sale" on its books, CFO Surya Subramanian said in a conference call. Emirates NBD reported a 21 percent

Barclays  completed its 5.8 billion pound ($9.4 billion) fundraising on Friday to meet a capital shortfall identified by its regulator, after almost 95 percent of the British bank's investors stumped up more cash.Barclays launched its rights issue three weeks ago, prompted by the British regulator's demand that it improve its leverage ratio - a measure of its capital to assets - to 3 percent by mid-2014.Barclays said bookrunners for the offer sold the shares that were not taken up by

J. Safra Sarasin Group, a Swiss private bank, is shutting its Indian joint venture after it was unable to build significant scale in a competitive market hit by slowing economic growth, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.India remains a difficult market for global wealth managers, who were drawn by its longer-term prospects only to find revenues being squeezed by cut-throat competition, high staff costs and subdued markets.Opportunities for growth in India have also been limited by regulations that

Dubai, which roiled markets with its request to delay $25 billion of debt payments in 2009, faces the prospect of rising borrowing costs if it succeeds in a bid to hold the Expo 2020 World Fair, Bank of America Corp. said.The emirate needs about 26 billion dirhams ($7.1 billion) of infrastructure spending to host the event, HSBC Holdings Plc analyst Patrick Gaffney said by phone. At the same time, Dubai has approximately $42 billion of debt coming due over the

The UAE Central Bank is set to launch the first phase of UAE Direct Debit System on October 5.The central bank said yesterday the registration of the banks and finance companies into the ‘Direct Debit System’ has been completed and all banks and finance companies are now ready to use the system.In a statement, the apex bank said an individual or corporate can set up a direct debit instruction by submitting a signed Direct Debit Authority (DDA) to the service

Abu Dhabi government-owned Al Hilal Bank priced its debut $500 million five-year sukuk issue, a document from lead managers said on Tuesday, as Gulf issuers flood back to the market to take advantage of conducive market conditions.The transaction priced at par with a profit rate of 3.267 percent and a spread of 170 basis points over midswaps, the document said. The spread had tightened significantly from the initial price thoughts, released on Sunday, which had indicated a spread of 190

Abu Dhabi government-owned Al Hilal Bank plans to issue a five-year benchmark-sized Islamic bond offering this week, a document from lead managers said on Sunday, in what would be the lender's debut debt sale.Initial price thoughts on the dollar-denominated offering have been set at 190 basis points over midswaps, the document said. Benchmark-size is traditionally understood to mean at least $500 million.Al Hilal, fully-owned by state fund Abu Dhabi Investment Council, is due to conclude meetings with fixed-income investors on

Dubai's Mashreq will allow foreigners to own up to 20 percent of the bank's shares, it said in a bourse statement on Wednesday.Foreign investors currently own only 1.9 percent of the bank's shares, data from the Dubai Financial Market shows. The change in foreign ownership is effective from Thursday, Mashreq said.About 20 percent of Mashreq's shares are free float, while the Al-Ghurair family holds a 70 percent stake, according to Reuters data.Mashreq is Dubai's third-largest bank by market value.-Reuters

Commercial banks in the United Arab Emirates are expected to post net profit growth of about 20 percent in 2013, the chairman of the Gulf state's banking federation said on Wednesday.UAE banks such as Dubai lender Emirates NBD and National Bank of Abu Dhabi posted strong second-quarter earnings thanks to an economic recovery in key sectors, primarily real estate, and lower provisions as the Gulf state recovers from debt troubles at Dubai's state-linked entities."Banks here (the UAE) managed to overcome

National Bank of Ras al-Khaimah (RAKBANK) has named Peter England, previously a senior banker at Malaysia's CIMB Group, as its new chief executive, the bank confirmed in a statement on Sunday.Reuters reported last month that England, who was the head of retail financial services business at CIMB, would replace current CEO Graham Honeybill, citing sources familiar with the matter.Honeybill had initially been due to retire in July and be replaced by Ian Larkin, a former managing director of Lloyds TSB

A Dubai court has dismissed a Kuwaiti sheikh's $21.4 million claim against UBS in which he alleged the Swiss bank failed to pay him for helping it become lead arranger on a $9 billion asset sale by Kuwaiti telecom operator Zain.The case highlighted the complexity of doing business in the Gulf, where personal connections to high-ranking officials or executives are often valued in deal making.But in a damning written verdict, Justice Sir David Steel described Sheikh Meshal - a member

The goal of a single rule book for Europe’s banks is splintering even before it’s implemented as northern countries move ahead with tougher requirements to ward off the next boom-to-bust cycle. Sweden’s too-big-to-fail banks, which already face stricter capital rules than their competitors elsewhere, may be told to hold even larger reserves, Financial Markets Minister Peter Norman said yesterday. In Denmark, Business Minister Henrik Sass Larsen said he can’t wait for southern Europe to regulate its systemically important financial institutions. He