China’s largest property developer Dalian Wanda Group has set its sights on banks in Europe, including Germany’s Postbank, as it diversifies away from its core real estate business. The Beijing-based group led by China’s richest man is actively looking at several European financial institutions, three people familiar with the matter said. Postbank — which has been put up for sale by Deutsche Bank — was among the […]
Monday 04:15 GMT Overview Equities climbed and the yen softened after Japan reported gross domestic product figures for the final quarter of 2016 that suggested any monetary policy settings will remain on hold for now. Hot topic Japan’s economy closed out 2016 with growth of 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter, below estimates of 0.3 per cent despite a boost to exports from a weaker yen […]
Dubai, 12 February 2017 Emirates NBD (DFM: EmiratesNBD), a leading bank group in the region, held its tenth Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the Bank’s Headquarters. At the AGM, a review of the year ended 31st December 2016 was presented. Commenting on the business environment, Emirates NBD Chairman, His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, said, “The UAE continues to stand out as a resilient and […]
ANZ has announced the appointment Lynwen Connick as its new chief information security officer, who will leave her role as the first assistant secretary information sharing and intelligence at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in March to take up her new position. Connick, who replaces former CISO Steve Glynn, was previously responsible for advising Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on cyber policy, intelligence, and secure […]
Japan’s economy grew at an annualised pace of 1 per cent in the final quarter of 2016 as yen weakness spurred a pick-up in exports and business investment. The figure, which was broadly in line with analysts’ expectations for a 1.1 per cent rise, confirms Japan’s economy is back on track after a wobble last summer. Robust growth will reinforce the political popularity of Prime Minister Shinzo […]
Photo Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Sunday that he and President Trump “have known each other for years.” Credit Pool photo by Gali Tibbon JERUSALEM — As President Trump appeared to shift closer to the political center on several contentious policies on Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested on Sunday that it was unrealistic to expect their two countries to agree completely on all […]
When investors last month thumbed through the voluminous marketing materials from Blue Nile, the US online jeweller being taken private by Bain Capital, a few numbers — and footnotes — stood out. Blue Nile was seeking to raise $180m of debt to fund the $500m private equity takeover. By one measure, Blue Nile’s debtrepresented roughly four times its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of […]
A period of consumer spending, retail sales and housing weakness may be imminent, after federal tax refunds tumbled by 78% in the early part of February compared to 2016, the result of a new law which requires the IRS to delay the printing of checks to households claiming specific tax credits. The reason for the slowdown is that in late 2015 Congress passed a law forcing the […]
As Comcast last year conducted secret talks about a potential acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, five Chinese investors — including an elderly couple in Beijing — acquired an enormous stake in the storytelling studio. Over a three-week period ending on April 25, those five accounts purchased more than 2.1m DreamWorks shares, amounting to nearly 17 per cent of all trading in the stock, according to the Securities and […]
Here are the big questions facing investors ahead of a new trading week. How long does a reprieve for French bonds last? After a burst of selling early last week, French debt was granted a reprieve with the 10-year benchmark yield easing back below 1.10 per cent. In turn, the divergence over 10-year Bund yields also pulled back from a four-year plus high. Traders remain nervous after […]
Loss-making Dubai construction firm Arabtec is working with boutique investment bank Moelis to study options for the company’s capital structure, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday. A mandate for restructuring advisory firm AlixPartners to reduce overheads at Arabtec was completed at the end of last year, the sources said, declining to be named as the information is not public. The sources said that the […]
By Jeffrey Heller | JERUSALEM JERUSALEM Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would present “responsible policies” in talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, signalling to the Israeli far-right to curb its territorial demands in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu leaves for Washington on Monday and will see Trump at the White House on Wednesday for their first meeting since the Republican’s inauguration last month, with […]
If you want to check the pulse of the mining sector one of the best places to go is the Mining Indaba in Cape Town. For this year’s annual gathering, with the sector in a far better place than it was 12 months ago when the mining industry was wallowing in debt, many executives, bankers and government officials may have been looking forward to some warm weather […]
PNC Menon is a busy man — it takes several months to lock an interview into his diary. But on the day of our meeting in Dubai, the Indian-born real estate developer exudes characteristic warmth and courtesy, refusing to allow Arabian Business to leave without a bowl of Middle Eastern halva and repeatedly asking whether we have enough milk in our tea. A long-term UAE resident and […]
Canceling cash was just the beginning. An article in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal takes a look inside the next phase in India’s war on the underground economy. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi forced his countrymen to turn in their high-value rupee bills late last year, tax sleuths are now sifting through records of millions of bank deposits to see who might have brought in cash that was […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| As much as 69 percent of oil demand growth up to 2022 will be in Emerging Asia, according to a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Other key conclusions of the report include advancement of the oil demand peak from 2050 to 2035 due to fast growth in electrical vehicles, increased carpooling/sharing and autonomous driving; increase in consumption by 1.1mn b/d p.a. […]
The European government bond market had what is known in technical circles as a minor freak-out this week. Yet as yields in eurozone bonds diverged sharply, the markets for stocks, corporate debt and currencies carried on regardless. The Cac 40 index of large French-listed companies was barely changed on the week. The euro weakened per cent against the US dollar, but at the same time the dollar […]
Mr. Kushner, on something of a crash course in diplomacy, has been speaking with Arab leaders in recent weeks. But he is a mystery to most Middle Eastern officials. He has no experience in government or international affairs. His up-close exposure to the Arab world amounts to little more than trips to a handful of Persian Gulf countries and a star-studded jaunt to Jordan. Continue reading the […]
Investors remained cautious on the so-called Trump trade over the past week, as political wrangling in Washington drove more money into bond funds and bond proxies. Junk bond funds collected $1bn in new money in the week to February 8, while investment grade corporate bond funds gained $2.1bn, the fourth straight week of inflows for highly rated company debt, according to data from EPFR. Utilities-focused equity funds, […]
In this Feb. 8, 2017, photo, a Google Chromebook displays Candy Crush Saga in New York. Google Chromebook laptops are impractical for many people because they’re little more than expensive paperweights when they’re out of range of an internet connection. Yet they’ve defied expectations and made tremendous inroads in one of the least likely places: U.S. schools. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) The Google Chromebook, a type of stripped-down […]
By Helen Reid and Abhinav Ramnarayan | COVENTRY, England COVENTRY, England U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer said there was significant uncertainty about U.S. fiscal policy under the Trump administration, but the Fed would be strict in meeting targets of creating full employment and getting inflation to 2 percent. Speaking at the Warwick Economics Summit on Saturday, Fischer also said he thought Dodd-Frank financial regulation would […]
Nordea, the Nordic bank, has banned its fund managers from investing in the companies constructing the $3.7bn Dakota Access oil pipeline, just weeks after Donald Trump, the US president, decided to push forward with the controversial project. The bank’s fund management division will no longer invest in Energy Transfer Partners(ETP), the main company that oversees the disputed project, amid concerns about the environmental and reputational risks of […]
Is there really such a thing as a market bubble? I feel almost heretical answering this question. I and most readers have lived through two decades that were dominated by two vast investment bubbles and the attempt to deal with their consequences when they burst. Getting into definitions is beside the point. As US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said to define pornography: “I know it […]
Gulf countries are forecast to drive the bulk of 2017 sovereign debt issuance, followed by Latin America, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Its latest GEMs Macro Monthly report said it expects Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Qatar and Kuwait to be the largest gross and net debt issuers in 2017. It said these four issuers could account for 37 percent of the total sovereign gross issuance. Among […]
