To find inspiration for the future in his new role as chief executive of Masdar, Dr Ahmad Belhoul looked at the past. “When you look back a generation or two to our grandparents’ time, they were some of the most sustainable people on Earth,” he said. “They would use water and food only to the extent that they needed.” Appointed as the head of Abu Dhabi’s leading […]
A trading screen on the floor of Dubai Financial Market shows the bid and offer levels for Emaar Malls Group shares. Asa Fitch for The Wall Street Journal Shares of Emaar Malls Group started trading on the Dubai Financial Market on Thursday, marking the first significant new share sale in Dubai since the global financial crisis. Emaar Malls isn’t a big deal globally. But traders here say […]
|By K Raveendran| The run-away success of Alibaba’s blockbuster IPO is seen inspiring other online players to take similar routes. Among the probable candidates is leading online trading and investment entity Saxo Bank. “The IPO is one of the options the management has under consideration,” Jakob Beck Thomsen, CEO of Saxo Bank Dubai, told The Arabian Post. But he refused to commit himself on a specific time […]
AirAsia is in talks to relaunch flights to the United Arab Emirates from its hubs in Southeast Asia, and has this time chosen Dubai rather than Abu Dhabi for its Western expansion. The low-cost airline’s founder Tony Fernandes was in Dubai Wednesday to talk to officials about flying Airbus Group NV A330 jets into one of the emirate’s two airports, Dubai International or Al Maktoum International. AirAsia […]
Gulf banks are feeling the pinch of rapidly shrinking corporate loan margins, with some predicting a bounce in lending rates as soon as the first half of 2015 as the escalating price war bites into profitability. Lenders are being forced to cut rates and loosen lending terms to secure business as local banks, flush with cash as their balance sheets recover from the global financial crisis, seek […]
A landmark ruling by the court system in Dubai’s financial free zone suggests the emirate is starting to influence the way international business disputes are resolved in the Middle East, partly taking over that role from London and New York. Last month a court in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) found Switzerland’s Bank Sarasin had mis-sold $200 million of investment products to Kuwait’s prominent Khorafi family, […]
Barjeel Data Centre…IT hub for operations Mercury Mena wins data centre project in Abu Dhabi MANAMA, 7 hours, 15 minutes ago Mercury Middle East and North Africa, a leading mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) company, has won a deal to provide the turnkey solutions for the new data centre for the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD). The Barjeel Data Centre will service as the information technology […]
Dubai construction company Arabtec is close to completing the planning and design stage of its $40 billion deal to build one million homes in Egypt, the company said on Sunday. Arabtec originally announced in March that it had agreed with the Egyptian army to build the homes at 13 locations around the country on land provided free by the armed forces. Construction was to start in the […]
Genesis offers financial monitoring class DUBAI, 1 days ago Genesis Institute, a leading financial trainer, has launched courses in financial monitoring for businesses to enable them to analyse their performance, reduce losses, improve profits and detect accounting fraud. “You don’t have to be a finance expert in order to see when you’re business is in jeopardy and in fact, it is crucial to be able to tell […]
|TAP Special| The star-crossed Dubai Pearl project is in trouble again. Work on the project, which has a history of chronic fund shortages, missed deadlines and botched up designs, has been completely stalled and expectations of an early resumption of construction have been belied. In the wake of defaults of various nature, the structure faces the risk of even a second demolition, according to insiders. After the […]
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 |With deadline fast approaching for Standard Chartered to exit part of its retail business, there is intense speculation over the likely suitor. Mashreqbank, one of the first names normally thrown up as a probable for such acquisitions, has ruled out any interest. The British bank is aiming to sell part of its business in the UAE after it agreed to close some accounts […]
CEO Akbar Al Baker at a press conference on the delivery of the first Airbus A380 to Qatar Airways in Hamburg. European Pressphoto Agency Qatar Airways has caught the “revolution” bug that has swept the Middle East as Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker promises changes for business class seats at the airline that prides its reputation for high-end service. By mid-2016 the airline plans to roll out […]
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 […]
A rush by Dubai’s retail investors to take part in the initial public offer of Emaar Properties’ malls unit put pressure on the emirate’s stock market on Tuesday, while successful fund-raising for the Suez Canal expansion lifted stocks in Egypt. Emaar said late on Monday that institutional investors had committed to buying all the shares offered to them in the flotation of its shopping malls business, only […]
Arabtec Holding said on Tuesday it was unaware of any stake sale agreement between its largest shareholders following reports that the company’s former chief executive was about to sell at least part of his stake. Arabtec “does not have the information” on such a deal, it said in a bourse statement. Shares in Arabtec jumped 3.7 percent to 4.77 dirhams on Monday following a report that its […]
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 […]
|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 […]
Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) has held talks with banks about raising a loan to help fund its general operations, the first time the firm has commissioned such a facility in years, three banking sources told Reuters on Thursday. While it is a rarity for the company to raise money not tied to a specific project, a loan would be the latest example of a Dubai state-backed entity tapping […]
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. “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 Capital DIFC Ltd. in […]
Dubai private equity firm Ithmar Capital has sold a 7.3 percent stake in Al Noor Hospitals for 10.30 pounds per share, two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday, in a deal worth 87.55 million pounds ($142 million). Ithmar offered 8.5 million shares in the healthcare firm in the first such sell-down since the company was listed in July 2013. The sale leaves Ithmar with a […]
Investors in Dubai continued to accumulate cash in early trade on Thursday ahead of the $1.4 billion initial public offer of Emaar Malls Group, a subsidiary of Emaar Properties, the largest listed developer in the emirate. The Dubai index fell 1.3 percent as most stocks were in the red. Emaar itself was the main drag, falling 1.8 percent as its shares no longer entitled their holders to […]
|By TAP Staff|Goldman Sachs is meeting investors this week for the sale of a dollar-denominated, benchmark-sized sukuk issue through its unit JANY Sukuk Co., people with knowledge of the deal said. The New York-based lender’s first foray into the Islamic capital markets three years ago ended without a sale amid criticism from scholars about the structure of its sukuk program and the use of funds raised. This […]
