Abu Dhabi will take full control of the UAE’ biggest oilfields when its decades-old venture with four western oil giants ends this weekend, while it weighs new partnerships that could include its long-term collaborators or Asian newcomers. The OPEC member country has held a 60-percent stake in Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO) since acquiring an interest in fields that produce over half the United […]
Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics have agreed to attend a mediation session to be held on or before February 19, as they prepare to clash in court in March over smartphone patents. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon will attend the session with in-house lawyers only, according to a Wednesday court filing. Their legal teams had met on January 6 to “discuss settlement opportunities,” […]
Negotiations between Iran and six world powers on implementing a landmark November deal to freeze parts of Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing some sanctions have run into problems over advanced centrifuge research, diplomats said. The dispute over centrifuges highlighted the huge challenges facing Iran and the six powers in negotiating the precise terms of the November 24 interim agreement. If they succeed, they plan to […]
Contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries Inc has appointed former Motorola Mobility chief Sanjay Jha as CEO, as it prepares to invest $9 billion to $10 billion over the next two years on next-generation semiconductor manufacturing. Jha, an industry veteran who presided over Motorola’s sale to Google Inc, replaces Ajit Manocha, who was appointed CEO in mid-2011 but now reverts to serving as an adviser to Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology […]
Indian budget airline SpiceJet has agreed to buy about 40 Boeing 737 jets worth over $4 billion at list prices, industry sources said, a move that could help the loss-making carrier as it seeks new investors. The deal includes a firm order for as many as 42 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft that offer fuel savings compared to SpiceJet’s existing fleet of current-generation Boeing 737s, the sources said. […]
Dubai plans new rules to control speculation on properties sold before they’re built after home prices climbed by more than 30 percent last year, the head of the emirate’s Land Department said. The real estate authority plans to complete a review of what are known as off-plan transactions in the first quarter and may introduce new regulations in the second or third quarter, Land Department General Director […]
Al Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB), a federal government company specialised in providing UAE-based credit reports and other financial information, has announced that it will be operational within the next three months. AECB, which is supported by the UAE federal government, has approached all UAE-based banks to sign agreements and provide credit information via a process which will be completed by the end of January 2014. Additionally, AECB […]
Dubai’s Emaar Properties will redeem the outstanding amount of its $500 million convertible bond issue on February 6, the developer said in a bourse filing on Monday. Paper worth $237.5 million was still outstanding following an earlier conversion of the bonds into stock late last year. Board members of Emaar had approved conversion of the instrument in December. The conversion price for the bond would be 4.38 […]
Asian shares fell to a near four-month low on Tuesday, though the dollar rebounded after overnight weakness on disappointing U.S. services sector data that raised concerns about stuttering growth in the world’s largest economy. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.3 percent, heading for a fifth straight day of losses. Japan’s Nikkei index shed 0.6 percent, adding to a 2.4 percent slide on Monday, […]
By Mohammed N Al Khan The race is on to become the first person to go to Mars – and Khalid Al Jaaidi is well and truly on the starting line. The 21-year-old designer has been shortlisted along with 1,058 applicants for the Mars One mission. More than 200,000 people applied for the chance to be part of Earth’s first colony on another planet, and Khalid feels […]
Nakheel PJSC’s plan to pay more than $1 billion of bank debt early may herald further gains for the Dubai real-estate developer’s Islamic bonds. Mashreq Capital DIFC Ltd. and Quantum Investment Bank Ltd. said Nakheel’s payments might help extend a rally that cut its sukuk yield by 215 basis points in the past 12 months to a record 6.58 percent Jan. 3, according to data compiled by […]
The UAE stock market regulator has introduced new margin lending rules and vowed to crack down on unlicensed lending, it said in a statement on its website. Margin lending – borrowing with cash or share holdings as security, has been in high demand as investors sought to maximise gains from a UAE market surge, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s bourses jumping 108 percent and 63.1 percent respectively […]
The United Arab Emirates issued rules for the issuance and trading of covered bonds, potentially a major step towards developing its debt market and giving commercial banks a new source of funding. The Securities and Commodities Authority, the UAE’s financial market regulator, set conditions for banks and other companies to obtain licences allowing them to issue covered bonds, state news agency WAM reported on Sunday. The SCA […]
By Andy Mukherjee The sudden rise of India’s self-professed “anti-establishment” party is making seasoned politicians nervous. Investors, meanwhile, view the dramatic ascent of the Aam Aadmi – Common Man Party – with a mixture of awe and suspicion. The one-year old upstart staged a recent electoral upset in the state of Delhi, home to the nation’s capital, by forming a government with support from Sonia Gandhi’s Congress […]
If the medicine tastes bad, it’s probably doing you good. Emerging economies might console themselves with that thought when they’re suffering market cramps and hemorrhaging capital as the U.S. ends its monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve will begin winding down, or tapering, its $85 billion-a-month money-printing program this month, and emerging markets are seeing foreign investment pull back as a result. Last year, around $30 billion fled […]
Dubai developer Nakheel plans to repay up to 4 billion dirhams ($1.1 billion) of bank debt due in 2015 this year, with around 2.35 billion dirhams earmarked for payment in the first quarter of this year, its chairman said on Saturday. Nakheel was taken over by the government as part of a $16 billion rescue plan completed in 2011, following the bursting of a real estate bubble […]
Dubai Group LLC, the investment company that has been seeking payment relief on loans for the past three years, repaid a $300 million syndicated facility led by Citigroup Inc., two people with knowledge of the matter said. Some of the lenders will exit talks on Dubai Group’s $6 billion debt pile, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The Islamic […]
India’s diversified equity mutual funds rose in 2013 but underperformed the broader markets for the first time in five years, as returns were dampened by the losses in the mid- and small-cap shares as well as financial companies. These funds gained 4.8 percent on average in 2013, according to data from fund tracker Lipper, delivering lesser annual returns than the benchmark BSE Sensex after 2008. The Sensex […]
Dubai investments expects to make a profit of around 800 million dirhams ($217.8 million) in 2013, a company statement said on Thursday, confirming local media reports. Khalid bin Kalban, the company’s chief executive, had told Al Khaleej newspaper that the net profit would be over 800 million dirhams at the end of 2013, a 149.5 percent increase over the 320.6 million dirhams of profit posted in 2012. […]
The secretive U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Friday renewed the authority of U.S. intelligence agencies to collect data on millions of Americans’ telephone calls in a program that has set off a legal battle over privacy rights. The court allowed the intelligence community to collect metadata from phone companies, the Office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a news release. The release offered […]
Italian carmaker Fiat SpA struck a $4.35 billion deal to gain full control of Chrysler Group LLC, ending more than a year of tense talks that have obstructed Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne’s efforts to combine the two automakers’ resources. The agreement, announced on Wednesday, cements Marchionne’s reputation as the industry’s consummate dealmaker about a decade after he took the helm of Fiat as a car business newcomer, […]
The rental increase calculator launched by the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Rera) on the Dubai Land Department (DLD) website will be updated soon, XPRESS reported quoting a senior official. Following a new decree on rents, several Dubai residents went online to calculate their rental increase. But since the rental index had not been updated they got no answers. “The rental index is being updated. We are working […]
The Bombay Bullion Association, a traders’ group, plans to buy a stake in the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. after the regulator declared its founder unfit to run the nation’s biggest commodity bourse. The association plans to buy 5 percent of MCX via a consortium led by the Universal Commodity Exchange Ltd., another Mumbai-based bourse, from Financial Technologies (India) Ltd., Mohit Kamboj, president of the group […]
Thousands protested in Hong Kong on Wednesday pressing China to allow full democracy in the city as a battle intensifies over Beijing’s attempts to control the outcome of a planned direct election for the city’s leader in 2017. Beijing had promised direct elections in the former British colony as the goal for 2017, but the devil is in the details of the rules governing who can run. […]
