Trafigura, one of the world’s largest commodity traders, has announced a 12 per cent decline in annual profits as challenging market conditions curbed money-making opportunities and it was forced to write down the value of port and rail assets. In the year to September, net profit was $975m, down from just over $1.1bn in 2015 which was a record year for trading the Geneva-based company. In spite […]
Submitted by Daniel Cloud “Donald Trump is either too incompetent to understand that his foolish phone call threatens our national security, or he’s doing it deliberately because he reportedly wants to build hotels in Taiwan to pad his own pockets.” – (Democratic National Committee Spokesperson) Is that true? Did “incompetent” President-Elect Donald Trump’s “foolish” telephone conversation with Taiwan’s President Cai Yingwen actually “threaten American’s […]
By Charlotte Greenfield | WELLINGTON WELLINGTON Two senior New Zealand ministers threw their support behind Finance Minister Bill English on Wednesday, underpinning his front-runner position in the race to replace John Key, who announced his shock resignation this week. Social Services Minister Paula Bennett and Transport Minister Simon Bridges said they were both running to become deputy leader and would back English’s leadership bid. English, who is […]
Abu Dhabi // Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid led the UAE delegation to the two-day GCC Summit on Tuesday, which is also being attended by UK prime minister Theresa May as she looks to expand trade ties ahead of Britain’s exit from the European Union. The 37th annual talks among the six Gulf member states in Manama were expected to focus on security within the GCC, economic integration […]
Picture it: rumours of a renminbi devaluation keep growing. Residents rush to open accounts offshore as experts warn Beijing will get off on the wrong foot with a relatively new US administration if a big depreciation happens. Official denials are made regularly — until a devaluation of about 50 per cent follows in short order. That was China in 1994. Today the idea of a similarly brutal, […]
SEOUL South Korea’s antitrust watchdog said on Wednesday it will file criminal complaints against several executives at Volkswagen AG’s South Korean unit and fine the company a record 37.3 billion won ($31.87 million) for false advertising over its vehicle emissions. The fine, a record for false advertising in the Asian country, indicates South Korean authorities are in no mood to soften their particularly tough line on the […]
December 6, 2016 by: Mark Wiedman and Richie Prager This is part of a series on the global rise of exchange traded funds How do you buy or sell bonds if the middleman is not there any more? As any bond investor will tell you, buying or selling bonds is harder and more costly than in long memory. Since the crisis, regulators have squeezed the investment bank […]
GFH Financial Group hopes to largely complete the acquisition of Bahrain’s Bank Al Khair in the first quarter of next year and is at an advanced stage of exploring a merger with another Bahraini bank, its chief executive said on Tuesday. “The recent merger we announced was Bank Al Khair – we hope during the first quarter of 2017 to finish most of our acquisition,” Hisham al-Rayes […]
By Phil Stewart and Amy Tennery | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK WASHINGTON/NEW YORK U.S. President-elect Donald Trump urged the government on Tuesday to cancel an order with Boeing Co (BA.N) for a revamped Air Force One – a prominent symbol of the U.S. presidency – complaining that costs were out of control. It was the latest example of Trump using his podium, often via brief Twitter messages, to rattle […]
Chesapeake Energy, the indebted US energy group that was among the pioneers of the country’s shale revolution, tapped debt markets for the first time in more than two years on Tuesday in a deal that underlined renewed appetite for oil and gas assets. The Oklahoma-based company, which defaulted on some of its obligations this year, secured $1bn in a larger than expected financing to repay as much […]
One of the key strengths of cloud computing is its inherent resilience and ubiquity: get the architecture right, and you can be assured that your data resides in multiple locations, providing both data resilience and the ability to serve data to partners, customers and employees wherever they happen to be. However, EU legislation demands that some types of data must remain in the same country as the […]
A big name in the antitrust world, Kevin Arquit, is on the move from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP to Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, his new firm said Tuesday. Mr. Arquit, a former general counsel at the Federal Trade Commission and director of its bureau of competition, departs after 14 years at Simpson, where he led the New York firm’s competition practice. He’s expected to join Weil […]
London’s FTSE 100 stands apart as the global laggard among major stock indices with investors giving it a wide berth almost a month since the election of Donald Trump. The performance reflects concern over Brexit negotiations hurting the shares of companies exposed to the UK economy while the pound’s recent rebound against the dollar and the euro offsets the boost for resource stocks from rising crude and […]
Speaking at the session were H.E. Saeed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA; H.E. Dr. Aisha Butti bin Bishr of the Smart Dubai Office; Academic Researcher Vivek Wadhwa; and Bibop G. Gresta and Dirk Ahlborn of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Inc. Dubai, December 6, 2016 A panel discussion exploring “Future Cities” and the role that knowledge plays in that regard concluded the sessions of day one of […]
A man holds up his mobile phone showing a M-Pesa mobile money transaction page for the photographer at an open air market in Kibera in Kenya’s capital Nairobi (Reuters/Noor Khamis). This post features a conversation with Georgia Levenson Keohane, executive director of the Pershing Square Foundation, adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School, and author of Capital and the Common Good: How Innovative Finance is […]
Hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand has returned almost 15 per cent this year by betting on a recovery in oil prices and he forecasts the rally has further to run after Opec’s agreement last week to cut supplies. The French founder of Andurand Capital, which has grown to be one of the world’s largest oil funds, returned 6.1 per cent in November as he positioned for crude’s […]
The petrochemical sector helped carry Saudi Arabia’s stock market to a fresh one-year closing high on Tuesday after crude oil prices hit a 17-month peak. The main Saudi index added 0.7 percent to 7,155 points in extremely heavy turnover with gainers outnumbering losers 139 to 18. The index is now up 3.5 percent year-to-date. The petrochemical sector stayed strong; it has been contributing to the market’s positive […]
06 December 2016 Saxo Bank, the online multi-asset trading and investment specialist, today announces that it is launching a combination order ticket for all clients trading contract options. The combination order ticket will enable clients to deploy multi-legged option strategies by simultaneously placing orders to buy and/or sell different options from the same order ticket. Georgio Stoev, Futures and Listed Options Product Manager, said: “Instead of trading […]
If you set out to make a positive investment case for Italy 20 years ago, the best hope was to play down the myriad structural inefficiencies that blighted the corporate sector and argue that this was a good economy burdened by an unworkable state. Now, after years of no growth accompanied by stubbornly high public debt, a positive case looks even harder to make, especially after the […]
By Jonathan Cable | LONDON LONDON Britain will most likely leave the European Union having signed a bilateral trade agreement, according to a Reuters poll of economists on Tuesday that also suggested there remains little chance of the country slipping into recession. Since the June 23 decision to leave the EU, Britain’s economy has performed much better than had been previously feared. The Bank of England is […]
A four-rotor “bunnycopter” developed at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory features propellers at different heights. Credit: Jason Dorfman/MIT CSAIL This fall’s new Federal Aviation Administration regulations have made drone flight easier than ever for both companies and consumers. But what if the drones out on the market aren’t exactly what you want? A new system from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is […]
By Stanley White | TOKYO TOKYO Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is arranging to meet Donald Trump about a week after he takes over as U.S. president on Jan. 20, Jiji news service reported on Tuesday. Abe met Trump in New York last month, soon after his election victory, and Jiji said Abe would meet him around Jan. 27. Trump’s inauguration is due on Jan. 20. A […]
InfoComm MEA Opens Today as Region’s Leading A/V Event, Showcasing Holograms, Videoboards, and Audio and Lighting Systems DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – 6 December 2016 Holograms, massive videoboards, and state-of-the-art audio and lighting displays will be among the audiovisual innovations set to make Expo 2020 in Dubai the world’s most technologically advanced event. The UAE is one of the fastest-growing professional audiovisual markets in one of […]
The UAE Armed Forces on Monday said it has signed contracts worth AED763 million ($207.7 million) with seven of the region’s leading F&B suppliers on the opening day of the SIAL 2016 exhibition. Major-General Staff Pilot Ishaq Al Balushi, head of the Supply Department of the General Command of the Armed Forces, signed contracts with the Army Officers Club, Abu Dhabi National Hotel Company Middle East, Al […]
