Demand for aircraft leasing is expected to stay steady. Aircraft lessors wary as new rivals crowd into aviation ISTANBUL, 1 days ago By Tim Hepher Aircraft leasing companies voiced confidence in steady jetliner demand, but warned new aviation investors that they may take a painful hit when central banks start unwinding their efforts to stimulate the economy. Deterred by poor returns elsewhere as interest rates remain at […]
Gulf Capital buys into top Egypt glass firm ABU DHABI, 21 hours, 31 minutes ago Gulf Capital, a leading alternative investment firm, has completed the acquisition of a strategic minority stake in Middle East Glass Manufacturing (MEG), Egypt’s largest container glass and PET manufacturer. MEG is a worldwide approved supplier of glass bottles for Coca-Cola, an approved supplier for Pepsi, Nestle and other major beverage producers locally […]
|By TAP Staff| The United Arab Emirates’ stock exchange plans to offer a trading platform for shares in private joint-stock companies so that they can raise capital with less disclosure of corporate information than publicly listed firms. Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said that trading would begin over the next few months on a special platform set up inside the country’s existing stock exchanges, state […]
| By Peter Garnry| What is clear post the Alibaba IPO is that the market is presumably mispricing Yahoo. Basically, it does not make sense if we assume markets are rational. Yahoo closed at $40.93 last Friday but based on a sum-of-the-parts (SOTP) analysis the stock should trade closer to $45. The table below outlines the SOTP analysis behind Yahoo’s fair value. The company has $3,408 million […]
Smartphone producers in China are closing in on market leaders Samsung and Apple. This is based on a large home market with above-average growth. Potential is even higher in India and Latin America. Today, the spotlight is on the two largest mobile telephone manufactures – Samsung and Apple – with their latest Galaxy and iPhone models. These smartphones are likely to sell in the millions, but this […]
Hedge funds extended this year’s longest exit from bullish gold bets as slumping prices and investor outflows since June erased $6.7 billion from the value of exchange-traded funds backed by the metal. The net-long position in New York futures and options fell for a fifth straight week, with speculators boosting short bets to the highest since June, U.S. government data show. Investors sold 7.75 metric tons of […]
|By TAP Staff| Dubai’s Emaar Properties said on Wednesday that its existing shareholders will be allocated one share in its malls unit IPO for every 36 held in the parent firm. Shareholders can buy the shares in Emaar Malls Group (EMG) on a preferential basis at the price that is set by the institutional book building process, the company said in a statement to Dubai’s bourse. Emaar […]
Three years after its first foray into the Islamic capital markets ended without a sale, investors piled in to buy sukuk debt from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) yesterday as the bank joined the governments of Hong Kong and the U.K. in selling debut Shariah-compliant bonds this year. The New York-based lender attracted bids for three times the $500 million of sukuk it sold yesterday, according to […]
While it’s only a year-and-a-half old, Docker appears poised for big things in the world of distributed applications, and the company just scored $40 million in new funding to prove it. The San Francisco-based startup raised the series C funding with the help of Sequoia Capital, just nine months after it closed $15 million in funding led by Greylock Partners. Since launching in March 2013, Docker has […]
ANKARA, Turkey — Having spent most of his youth as a drug addict in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Turkey’s capital, Can did not think he had much to lose when he was smuggled into Syria with 10 of his childhood friends to join the world’s most extreme jihadist group. After 15 days at a training camp in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto […]
Edinburgh in the sunshine Photo: AP In bright sunshine this past week, the cobbled pedestrian streets of Edinburgh and the bustling byways in and around the Royal Mile have been thronged with students getting to know Scotland’s historic capital. Students like me, eager to start this new chapter in our lives while enjoying the cheap alcohol and easy socialising that comes with Fresher’s Week. However, behind the carnival […]
WASHINGTON — The United States, as promised by President Obama, has stepped up its airstrike campaign in Iraq, hitting targets near Baghdad in the effort to help the Iraqi government win back territory seized by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Pentagon officials said Monday. The offensive is the first expansion of the United States’ campaign against the Islamist militant group that Mr. Obama outlined last […]
|By TAP Staff| Emaar Properties said the IPO of its shopping malls business unit has been sold out to institutional investors on the first day itself. The leading developer aiming to raise as much as AED 5.8 billion ($1.58 billion) from the offer of shares in Emaar Malls Group (EMG), which is expected to be the Gulf’s biggest stock sale since 2008. On offer are 2 billion […]
|By TAP Staff| Qatar National Bank announced the acquisition of an additional holding of 11 percent shares in pan-African bank Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (Ecobank). The cost of the additional holding is equivalent to $283 million. QNB Group’s total stake in Ecobank is now 23.5 percent. This enables QNB Group to become the largest shareholder whilst strengthening the partnership with Ecobank, a leading pan-African bank and is a […]
|By TAP Staff| Dubai added to its financial market profile when Bank of America-Merrill Lynch announced on Monday it was moving its head of frontier markets research to the city. The move reflects the bank’s plan to take advantage of growing investor interest in the Gulf and surrounding region. Global firms have been strengthening their presence in the wake of surging stock markets, index upgrades and most […]
Customers pre-ordered more than four million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets in just the first 24 hours, according to Apple, around double the number the company saw for the iPhone 5s and 5c a year ago. Apple is on track to top 10 million units sold over the entire launch weekend, if the tech giant can keep up with the level of demand. The smartphones first […]
Boom and bust – two words that are regularly heard when the property market in the United Arab Emirates, especially Dubai, is discussed. But that theme appears to be changing. At least that’s what some industry experts are indicating. The property market, after rebounding sharply since early 2013 from the global financial crisis-induced crash, is now showing signs of stabilising – with the pace of growth in […]
Savola Group, a Saudi Arabian food producer, hired JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) to advise on a potential bid for the operator of KFC restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. Non-binding bids for the $4.3 billion Kuwait Food business, known as Americana, are due next month, the people said, asking not to be identified as the […]
|By TAP Staff| Emaar Properties said it’s seeking to raise as much as $1.58 billion from the initial public offering of its malls unit in the UAE’s biggest IPO since 2007. Emaar Malls Group PJSC plans to sell 2 billion of its founders’ shares, or about 15 percent of its equity, in a price range of 2.5 dirhams to 2.9 dirhams apiece, according to a company statement […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Banks with experience arranging Islamic bond sales may stand to benefit from the potential opening of Saudi Arabia’s debt market to foreign investors, according to the investment banking unit of Mashreqbank PSC. (MASQ) “There’ll be a lot of potential for non-Saudi banks to get involved on the advising and arranging side,” Abdul Kadir Hussain, who oversees about $700 million as chief executive officer of Mashreq […]
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he was “extremely encouraged” by pledges of military assistance against Islamic State militants by countries inside and outside the Middle East and that some nations had offered ground troops. Kerry has been touring the Middle East to try to secure backing for U.S. efforts to build a coalition to fight the Islamic State militants who have grabbed territory in Syria […]
Secretary of State John Kerry and Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, in Cairo. By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK September 13, 2014 CAIRO — Secretary of State John Kerry received broad assurances but no public commitments from Egypt on Saturday as he continued his tour of the Middle East to try to assemble a coalition behind an American campaign against the extremist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq […]
Google has kicked off yet another program aimed at helping to develop the next big thing in tech: Google Cloud Platform for Startups. The program offers early-stage tech companies $100,000 in credit for Google’s Cloud Platform services, along with 24/7 support and technical architecture review help from Google’s engineers. The new offering was announced Friday by Urs Hölzle, Google Fellow and senior vice president of technical infrastructure, […]
Standard Chartered Plc is in talks with potential corporate sukuk issuers from China and Hong Kong, as the city government debuts its Islamic bonds. The lender, the fourth-largest Shariah-compliant debt arranger this year, sees Hong Kong as a “very unique opportunity as a gateway to China,” Afaq Khan, the Dubai-based chief executive officer at Standard Chartered Saadiq, said in an interview. The city’s entry to the Islamic […]
