Dubai contractor Arabtec Holding plans to list a portion of its construction unit in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Abu Dhabi bourse next year, the group chief executive said on Wednesday. IPOs dried up in the UAE when its financial crisis erupted five years ago but a recovery in the economy, especially in Dubai, has led to some firms announcing plans to list shares in […]
Twitter Inc on Tuesday reported 255 million monthly active users, up 5.8 percent from the previous quarter but not enough to satisfy investors increasingly concerned about its struggle to gain a mass following. Twitter’s stock fell nearly 10 percent after hours, to below its post-initial public offering low of $38.80 on November 25. The San Francisco-based company also said viewers refreshed their “timelines” – Twitter’s equivalent of […]
London-based RiverCrossing Capital Partners, a new Islamic investment firm, has launched its first product, a U.S. real estate fund, as part of a plan to offer non-traditional asset classes to institutional investors in the Gulf. The firm will develop asset-based funds with a non-cyclical nature, a departure from other sharia-compliant real estate funds which have focused on more traditional commercial and residential properties that perform in line […]
A sense of euphoria can be felt as you walk onto the Dubai Financial Market’s (DFM) trading floor. Excited investors sit huddled at tables, eyes fixed on trading screens. Occasionally the floor erupts in applause as certain stocks shoot up to target levels. A local investor in his fifties who gives his name as Abu Hany, dressed in the traditional white robes of the Gulf, describes himself […]
|By TAP Staff| A change of rule by the UAE stock market regulator will now allow smaller firms to tap Islamic capital markets through smaller-sized sukuk issues. The new rules for Islamic and corporate bonds also seek to encourage trading in them, and make it easier for foreign institutions to operate. The changes are part of plans to introduce at least two new rules covering the stock […]
Buyers are lining up for Germany-based packaging group Mauser with final bids due to be submitted on Monday, banking sources said on Friday. The sale of Mauser by Dubai International Capital (DIC) could fetch around 1.25 billion euros ($1.73 billion), one of the banking sources said. At this price, the sale would be one of the largest asset disposals by the emirate since its debt crisis in […]
The first initial public offer of shares on Dubai’s main stock market for five years was 36 times subscribed, a sign of massive interest in equities among retail investors as the emirate’s economy booms. Investors subscribed 10 billion dirhams ($2.7 billion) to the fixed offer of 275 million shares in Marka, which were priced at 1 dirham each, Jamal Al Hai, chairman of the company’s founders committee, […]
Omar Sharif is undoubtedly the biggest film star from the Arab world, an icon since he first emerged as a wobbling, pixelated speck on a desert horizon in Lawrence of Arabia. Unfortunately, to many he’s the only film star from the Arab world, something that Irish director Jim Sheridan has taken it upon himself to fix. “I used to be very friendly with Marlon Brando,” explains Sheridan […]
Forbes Media LLC’s effort to find a buyer is running into trouble, with one potential bidder officially out of the running and two others no longer in active talks, people with knowledge of the matter said. Germany’s Axel Springer SE, which publishes the Russian edition of the magazine, isn’t involved in any process to acquire Forbes, Edda Fels, a spokeswoman, said yesterday. The company had been interested […]
Emirates NBD expects the buoyant local economy to keep boosting its profits and allow the bank to build up its bad loan coverage ratio without the kind of severe provisioning which stymied recent earnings, its CEO said on Thursday. Dubai’s largest lender beat analysts’ forecasts with a 25 percent jump in first-quarter net profit to 1.04 billion dirhams ($283.7 million) as higher interest and fee income outstripped […]
Qatar has resolved its dispute with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, according to Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohamed Al-Attiyah. The spat was nothing more than “differences in opinion,” Attiyah told reporters in Kuwait. The resolution came at an April 17 meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, and the results aren’t “considered concessions by anyone,” he said. It’s up to Qatar’s fellow Gulf Arab countries […]
Emaar Properties, Dubai’s largest listed real estate developer, predicted on Wednesday that its profits would more than quadruple by 2018 as the emirate’s economy booms and the company’s overseas business expands. The company, about 29 percent owned by the Dubai government, is seen by many investors as a proxy for the emirate’s economy, which relies heavily on real estate development, tourism and the retail industry – sectors […]
Dubai tapped capital markets for the first time in more than a year with the sale of $750 million of 15-year Islamic bonds as the emirate seeks to pay debt and finance its budget amid a property-market recovery. The Dubai government’s securities will price to yield 5 percent, according to a person with knowledge of the offering, who asked not to be identified because the details are […]
Oman’s plan to build a $1 billion natural-gas pipeline from Iran is the latest sign that Saudi Arabia is failing to bind its smaller Gulf neighbors into a tighter bloc united in hostility to the Islamic Republic. The accord was signed during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Oman last month, and marks the first such deal between Iran and a Gulf Cooperation Council state in more […]
|By TAP Staff|The much-awaited Dubai benchmark government sukuk is expected soon. The issue, which will have a life span of 15 years, is initially expected to be priced between 5 and 5.125 basis points and total at least $500 million, according to lead managers. The banks arranging the transaction are Dubai Islamic Bank , Emirates NBD, HSBC, National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Standard Chartered. Dubai was […]
Hedge funds lowered bullish bets on gold for a fourth week, the longest streak this year. The net-long position contracted to the lowest since mid-February as speculators sold bullion on signs of accelerating U.S. economic growth. The investors more than doubled bets on lower prices in the past month while reducing wagers on a rally in six of the past seven weeks. Prices fell 7.6 percent since […]
|By TAP Staff| With mixed availability of commercial space across the Abu Dhabi market, potential occupiers remain focussed on prime Grade A stock, which is sustaining rents at the top end of the market, according to the latest research by real estate consultancy Cluttons. Cluttons Abu Dhabi Spring 2014 Commercial Market Outlook report, asserts that with flat rents persisting, occupiers remain in the driving seat and are […]
Bahrain’s Gulf International Bank plans to issue a 2 billion-riyal ($545 million) floating rate notes with a lifespan of five years through a private placement in Saudi Arabia, a prospectus showed on Sunday. The bank mandated its own investment banking arm, GIB Capital, as well as those of National Commercial Bank, Samba Financial Group and Banque Saudi Fransi to act as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners. […]
Dubai needs to regulate its off plan property market and monitor the rising levels of cash transactions to ensure sustainable growth and avoid a bust, an industry expert has warned. “There is a lot of capital coming into the market specifically within the residential market,” said Mat Green, head of research and consultancy at CBRE, Middle East. “We are not yet back to 2008 prices but in […]
Amina al-Rustamani, a member of a prominent UAE family, raised eyebrows among friends and relatives when she started her career in Dubai 13 years ago as an electrical engineer, becoming one of few females in the Middle East to enter the profession. Success in a male-dominated environment helped give her the confidence to rise up the career ladder and break more barriers. She is now chief executive […]
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is gaining ground in the debt markets of Gulf Cooperation Council states after the biggest U.S. bank helped manage this month’s Islamic bond sale by Saudi Arabia’s utility. JPMorgan is the biggest bond underwriter after HSBC Holdings in the six-nation GCC in 2014, its best start to a year since 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The New York-based lender advised on […]
Zain Saudi, Saudi Arabia’s third biggest telecoms operator, will buy fixed line capacity from its competitors to expand its service offering in the kingdom and aims to break even in less than five years, it said on Wednesday. The firm, which began operations in 2008, claimed 15 percent of Saudi’s mobile subscribers at 2013-end and has struggled to break the dominance of better-resourced rivals Saudi Telecom Co […]
Investors in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar booked profits for a second day on Monday as global markets remained gloomy and tension grew between Russia and the West over Ukraine. But all three bourses later recovered to different degrees. After opening slightly higher, the three bourses dipped along with Asian and European markets as Ukraine threatened military action against pro-Russian separatists occupying government buildings in the east […]
Dubai’s benchmark stock index fell the most in a month, tracking a decline in global markets last week, on investor concern this year’s rally was overdone given prospects for earnings growth. Saudi Arabia’s gauge dropped. The DFM General Index tumbled 1.7 percent, the most since March 12, to close at 4,759.15 in the emirate. Dubai Islamic Bank , the United Arab Emirates’ biggest shariah-compliant bank, declined for […]
