Iran said on Saturday it had useful expert-level nuclear talks with world powers in Vienna, addressing all major technical issues in the way of a final settlement. “The meetings were useful, raised mutual insight into our differing positions,” Iranian negotiator Hamid Baeedinejad told the official IRNA news agency at the end of the three-day talks in Vienna. “Everyone came well-prepared … addressing issues in minute technical details […]
Italian businessman Massimo Cellino has been given approval to complete the purchase of second tier club Leeds United after an independent QC overturned the Football League’s initial decision to block him. Cellino, president of Italian Serie A club Cagliari, agreed in February to buy a 75 percent stake in former English champions Leeds for a reported 25 million pounds ($41.48 million) from Dubai-based GFH Capital. However, the […]
Shareholders of Dubai property developer Deyaar have approved a plan to allocate 25 percent of its share capital to foreigners, the company said on Saturday. At present, investors in Gulf Cooperation Council countries can own up to 49 percent of Deyaar’s shares; they currently hold 3.7 percent, bourse data shows, while those from outside the GCC have not been allowed to own any stake. The company said […]
|By TAP Staff| A new Citibank report on Dubai property market asserts there is little room of investors to show complacency as the measures to curb speculative demand and to strengthen the prudential regulation of the real estate and banking sectors so far do not remove the threat of a repeat of property-led volatility of 2008-09. As Dubai’s property market booms and large-scale projects are announced, parallels […]
U.S. stocks fell, with the Nasdaq Composite Index sliding the most in two months, after large technology stocks from Google Inc. to Yahoo Inc. plunged as investors sold the bull market’s biggest winners. Google Class A shares sank 4.6 percent in the biggest drop since October 2012. Facebook Inc. lost 4.6 percent, bringing its two-day slide to 9.5 percent. Yahoo Inc. declined 4.2 percent to the lowest […]
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating high-speed trading for possible insider trading, Attorney General Eric Holder told lawmakers on Friday. The disclosure comes the same week that regulators and the FBI also confirmed they are looking into potential wrongdoing by high-frequency stock traders. Regulators have been examining whether ordinary investors are at an unfair disadvantage to high-speed traders, who use computer algorithms to rapidly dart in and […]
MasterCard , eServGlobal and BICS announced the successful closing of its joint venture HomeSend. HomeSend will provide an important link between developed and financially underserved emerging markets, particularly for foreign workers in need of an instantaneous and cost-effective solution for funds transfer. The World Bank estimates that the world’s 232 million international migrants are expect to remit over US$700 billion annually by 2016. The company will be […]
India’s high-profile RBI governor is likely to come under political pressure to retreat from his hawkish stance on inflation if opposition leader Narendra Modi wins power in the general election. Strategists in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), confident that his jobs-first policy pitch will secure a strong voter mandate, suggest that they would prefer to have one of their own at the helm of the Reserve Bank […]
Conglomerate Dubai World has hired New York-based investment and advisory firm Blackstone Group LP to take a fresh look at its debt and how to make repayments to creditors, sources aware of the matter told Reuters. “This is only for advisory purposes and to streamline the available options for the debt maturing in 2018,” a Dubai government source said, speaking on condition of anonymity under briefing rules. […]
Abu Dhabi’s largest oil refinery is preparing to boost production of the industry’s lowest-sulfur diesel within three months as standards for the fuel rise, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The emirate’s 400,000 barrel-a-day plant at Ruwais will only produce diesel with 10 parts per million of sulfur by July, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak […]
With a youthful, well-educated population, strong relationships with both neighbours and world powers, and a strategic location on the Gulf, major oil producer Kuwait should be as dynamic a hub for the region as Dubai or Doha. But while others in the Gulf have powered ahead, attracting foreign investment and developing infrastructure, Kuwait has stagnated, frustrating the people of a country once seen as a Middle East […]
Dubai will compete with London for a share of Islamic banks’ liquidity management business by offering a new platform for murabaha trading. Many Islamic banks around the world manage their short-term funds with murabaha, in which one bank acquires merchandise and another agrees to buy it at a mark-up. Traditionally, banks from the Gulf and as far afield as southeast Asia use commodities traded on the London […]
General Motors Co CEO Mary Barra came under withering attack for her company’s decade-long failure to deal with defective parts linked to fatal crashes, in a hearing where U.S. Senators accused the company of “criminal” behavior and “a culture of cover-up.” Democratic and Republican senators, including some former prosecutors and state attorneys general, challenged Barra’s assertion that GM had vastly improved its safety and management practices since […]
The S&P 500 closed at another record high on Wednesday as signs of steady private-sector hiring suggested that the economy was slowly building momentum after a winter-related pullback. That also put more focus on Friday’s government jobs data, which is among the most widely watched economic indicators. “There’s positioning ahead of that report,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president of BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama. He […]
Pricing guidance for a five-year sukuk issue by Dubai’s DAMAC Real Estate was tightened further amid strong investor demand, with final guidance issued in the range of midswaps plus 310-320 basis points. The size of the issue was expanded to $650 million from the originally planned $500 million, a document from arrangers showed. Books, which are to close at 1000 GMT in London on Wednesday, now exceed […]
|By TAP Staff| India’s Supreme Court has ordered the chairman of Samsung Electronics, Lee Kun-hee, to appear before a local court within six weeks to avoid arrest in a dispute with an Indian company that was to supply goods to a Dubai company. The dispute is over the payment of over a $1.4 million owed to the company for supplying the goods. The dispute dates back to […]
Companies with as little as 20 percent of their global assets in India could find themselves facing tax bills in deals involving their domestic units under changes to the tax code that the government proposed on Tuesday. The government’s Direct Taxes Code 2013 recommended the change along with a new income tax bracket that would require rich people to pay higher taxes. A previous recommendation in 2010 said […]
Northern Chile was shaken by a magnitude 8.2 earthquake, triggering a tsunami warning along most of the Pacific Coast of South America. There were no immediate reports of major damage or deaths. The quake struck at 9 p.m. local time 95 kilometers from the city of Iquique at a depth of 20 km, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The first tsunami waves reached as high as […]
After pouring billions of dollars into cities including London, New York and Sydney, individual investors and developers in China are expanding into Dubai. About a thousand individual Chinese investors spent 1.3 billion U.A.E dirhams ($353 million) on land, residential units and office real estate in Dubai last year, according to data from the Dubai Land Department. That is a nearly threefold increase from the 486 million dirhams […]
Oman’s central bank has set new caps on banks’ credit exposure to non-residents and funds placed abroad, giving lenders six months to comply. The move comes after the government and regulators last month set up a financial stability committee to monitor and manage risks in the banking and capital markets. “The banks which are in excess of the prudential limits prescribed under the guidelines are granted up […]
Pricing guidance for a $500 million sukuk issue by Dubai’s DAMAC Real Estate was tightened to the midswaps plus 325 basis points area, according to information from a lead arranger on Tuesday. Earlier, DAMAC set price thoughts for its five-year sukuk at midswaps plus the mid-300s. Books now exceed $2.25 billion. The sukuk is expected to launch and price on Wednesday. Joint lead managers are Abu Dhabi […]
Saudi Arabian conglomerate Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers (AHAB) estimates its assets are worth less than a quarter of about $5.9 billion in claims made against it, a spokesman said as the group prepares a proposal to end one of the Middle East’s biggest corporate debt disputes. AHAB this week invited more than 70 financial institutions, including Saudi, regional and international banks, to a meeting in Dubai […]
A year after Citigroup Inc. declared the decade-long run of commodity gains over, wacky weather, dead piglets and Vladimir Putin have gotten in the way. While Citigroup rang “death bells” in April 2013 for the synchronized super cycle fueled by economic growth in China, extreme weather and supply squeezes led to surprise rallies in 2014’s first three months. Coffee hit a two-year high, cattle and hogs rose […]
|By TAP Staff|Takeovers abroad and a boost in treasury income helped Gulf banks increase revenues by more than 10% last year – the best combined performance since the crisis hit five years ago – with regional lenders easily outperforming their international counterparts, says Boston Consulting Group. “We’re seeing again double-digit growth in the region which, however, comes to a large extent because of international acquisitions of the […]
