By Shinichi Saoshiro | TOKYO TOKYO Asian stocks edged up and the dollar rose to 1-1/2-month highs versus the yen on Friday, ahead of the closely-watched U.S. non-farm payrolls report due later in the day. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.2 percent, taking cues from a modest bounce in Wall Street overnight. Japan’s Nikkei climbed more than 1 percent on the back of […]
New York and London are locked in a frantic race to be the main international listing venue for Saudi Arabia’s initial public offering of its state oil company, emerging as clear frontrunners in what is set to be the world’s biggest ever flotation. Executives from the New York Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange have held talks with Saudi Aramco, the state group valued at as much […]
The release of the Android 7.0 Nougat update for Samsung’s former flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge had been delayed according to an official announcement from Samsung, but now appears to be rolling out. Owners of other Samsung devices expected to receive the update, the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy A, J series and Galaxy Tab, are now wondering how the S6 delay will […]
By Leigh Thomas and Sudip Kar-Gupta | PARIS PARIS Centrist Emmanuel Macron saw his position as favourite to win France’s presidential election boosted on Thursday in two polls, with one showing him ahead of far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the first round of the two-stage contest. A monthly Cevipof survey, considered the most authoritative because it has a far bigger sample size than most polls, put […]
Photo Palestinians waiting for travel permits to cross into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing this week. In an effort to improve relations with the Egyptian government a new Hamas document would declare that the group is not a part of the Muslim Brotherhood. Credit Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CAIRO — Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that has governed the Gaza Strip for a decade, […]
By Madeline Chambers and Ralph Boulton | BERLIN/ISTANBUL BERLIN/ISTANBUL German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Turkey to stop invoking Berlin’s Nazi past in criticising cancellations of Turkish ministers’ rallies in Germany, and said she would do everything possible to keep Turkish domestic conflicts from spilling onto German soil. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who survived an army attempt to topple him in July, is working to win the votes […]
By Jonathan Stempel | NEW YORK NEW YORK Former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine defended his big bet on European sovereign debt that was a major factor in the collapse of his company MF Global Holdings Ltd, and said the auditor of the futures and commodities brokerage should have flagged any accounting problems. Corzine, also a former New Jersey senator and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) co-chairman, […]
Oil prices were under intensifying pressure on Thursday, with the US West Texas Intermediate benchmark dipping below $49 a barrel for the first time since late November. The falls came after oil prices fell the most in more than a year over the previous session when US crude inventories climbed for a ninth straight week to a record high. Renewed concerns about a supply glut sent ripples […]
By Toby Sterling | AMSTERDAM AMSTERDAM Dutch paints and coatings maker Akzo Nobel NV (AKZO.AS) rejected a 21 billion euro ($22 billion) bid from larger U.S. rival PPG Industries Inc (PPG.N) on Thursday, saying instead it wanted to “unlock value” by spinning off its chemicals business. PPG’s unsolicited offer comes just days before an election where the vulnerability of the biggest Dutch companies to foreign takeover has […]
European leaders moved on Thursday to isolate Poland as prime minister Beata Szydlo insisted she would press ahead with her campaign to oust Donald Tusk, the country’s former premier, as head of the European Council. Government leaders from across the EU lined up in support of Mr Tusk as they arrived for a Brussels summit at which they will press to give the European Council president a […]
Thursday 14:30 GMT Overview The euro is firmer and Bund yields are trundling higher with Treasuries after the European Central Bank stood pat on interest rates and indicated it was not looking to ease policy further. Oil prices tried to rally but have resumed their sell-off, putting energy stocks under pressure and weighing on equity benchmarks. Hot topic (1) After a period when politicians seemed to rule […]
09 March 2017 AMMAN – Talal Abu-Ghazaleh & Co. Consulting (TAG-Consult) for Quality Management Systems and Sana Pharmaceutical Industries signed a cooperation agreement for the preparation and application of CE Marking (the European quality mark) under the supervision and with the funding of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The agreement is considered the first of its kind in the field of management system consulting […]
AIG is to set up a new base in Luxembourg after the UK leaves the EU as the likely loss of passporting rights post Brexit has forced the US insurer to look for an alternative location to London from which to service EU business. The choice of Luxembourg is a sign of a shift in attitudes in the insurance world. Immediately after the Brexit vote, there was […]
George Osborne will earn £650,000 a year for working four days a month at BlackRock, more than ten times what he is paid as an MP once expected share awards from the world’s largest fund manager are included. The detail of Mr Osborne’s pay at BlackRock, which he agreed to join as an adviser earlier this year, was disclosed in the register of members’ financial interests at […]
By John Walcott and Andrea Shalal | WASHINGTON/BERLIN WASHINGTON/BERLIN U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Wednesday that they have been aware since the end of last year of a security breach at the CIA that led to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks publishing agency documents on its hacking tools. The officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that they believed that the documents published by […]
By Gabriela Baczynska | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS European Union leaders will discuss on Thursday their agreed plan to cut immigration from Libyan shores to Italy but they increasingly fear that calmer spring weather will bring a new surge of arrivals from Africa. Arrival numbers from lawless Libya are already higher than last year. Some 9,000 people made the perilous voyage in January and February last year, compared with […]
Poisoned. Stabbed. Driven to suicide. These are just some of the unpleasant ways women in 19th-century opera meet their demise. Mimi, from La Bohème, is no different. Giacomo Puccini’s masterpiece – which comes to Dubai Opera for three performances from today until Saturday – sees the opera’s heroine end her days in poverty, coughing up blood, too poor to buy medicine, and estranged from her one true […]
Here are the big questions set to frame a new trading week for markets. How frothy are equity and junk bond valuations looking?Another record-breaking week for equities and a red hot reception for the Snap initial public offering is not the only sign of investor optimism running wild. Junk bond spreads — the premium investors demand to hold the bonds over Treasury yields — are heading towards […]
BERLIN Support for Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) nudged up to 32 percent, one percentage point behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, over the past week, according to a poll published on Wednesday. The centre-left SPD, currently the junior partner in Merkel’s ruling coalition, has seen its poll ratings soar since nominating former European Parliament president Martin Schulz as its candidate for chancellor in the Sept. 24 federal election. […]
Providing Innovative Financing Solutions to Buyers Interested In Purchasing Residential Units Muscat, March 08, 2017 Sohar Islamic, Bank Sohar’s Islamic Banking Window signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with National Mass Housing, a developer of integrated housing communities, to provide preferential Shari’ah Compliant financing solutions to potential Omani’s buyers for purchasing residential units in the upcoming Areej project – phase 2 located in Muscat. The purpose of […]
DUBAI – March 7, 2017 Hotpack Packaging Industries, a leading producer and wholesaler of quality disposable food packaging materials in the UAE, has recently announced an investment of GBP 50 million to develop a facility in Wrexham – Wales, England. The facility will be equipped with the latest in packaging and manufacturing technologies. The announcement was made when Ms. Lesley Griffiths, Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Environment […]
The House of Lords has voted in support of a requirement for the government to bring the final terms of Britain’s exit from the EU before parliament for its approval, inflicting a second defeat on Theresa May’s Brexit strategy in the space of a week. With 634 peers voting — the largest number of peers to participate in a vote in the upper chamber on record, according […]
Banks have structured some unusual and complex deals for European companies to raise capital through a combination of debt and equity derivatives in recent weeks, reflecting investor enthusiasm for convertible securities. Last week BASF launched a $600m bond bundled with warrants, in a so-called neutral structure which effectively makes the chemicals group a middleman between its investors and its banks. The deal, put together by Deutsche Bank, […]
Canadian financial services group Canaccord Genuity’s aims to double the contributions to its investment banking business from the Middle East and India in the next five years, its regional head told Reuters. It recently helped broker a C$5 billion ($3.7 billion) investment partnership between Dubai ports operator DP World and Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, Canada’s second-largest public pension fund. “We think this could be […]
