Saudi Arabia has invited investors to submit requests to qualify for the first round of its $30-$50 billion National Renewable Energy Programme by March 20, it said on Monday. Saudi Arabia is targetting 9.5 GW of renewable energy by 2023 in line with Vision 2030, an economic reform plan launched last year to diversify the economy beyond oil. The renewable programme involves investment of between $30 billion […]
ABU DHABI // Combining the capabilities of Saudi Arabia and the UAE could create historic opportunities for the region, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid said on Tuesday. “Through our integration, solidarity and unity, we can protect our gains, enhance our economies and build a better future for our people,” the Vice President and Ruler of Dubai said at a joint retreat on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, attended by […]
The International Monetary Fund’s description of Greek debt as potentially explosive has left negotiators in Brussels struggling to bridge the differences between Athens and its creditors before time runs out to avert default. With creditors unwilling to release the next tranche of bailout money needed to keep the country afloat, Greece is facing €7bn of debt redemptions in July that it cannot afford. Investors appear to have […]
By Fergus Jensen | JAKARTA JAKARTA Saudi Arabia’s King Salman will visit Jakarta and Bali on the Indonesian leg of his Asian tour next month, bringing 1,500 people in his entourage including 10 ministers, Indonesian officials said. “This is a very historic visit for us,” Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung told reporters on Tuesday, adding that the king would be in Indonesia from March 1 to 9. He […]
European markets regulators are examining a potential loophole in share-trading rules, which they fear promotes lightly regulated, private networks rather than placing curbs on trade away from public exchanges. Concern is mounting that the rules, which take effect from next January, could be exploited by some banks and high-frequency traders (HTF), to sidestep policymakers’ determination to make share trading more transparent. In an effort to improve trading […]
PARIS French centrist politician Emmanuel Macron has lost ground to his closest election rival, conservative Francois Fillon, and might not make a May 7 runoff against far-right leader Marine Le Pen, an opinion poll showed on Tuesday. The poll gives Fillon the position of favourite to win the presidency – a position he lost in the aftermath of a fake work scandal that engulfed his campaign four […]
Saudi Arabia is favouring New York to list state oil giant Saudi Aramco IPO, while also considering London and Toronto for the prospect of floating the firm, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Saudi officials also talked to exchanges in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai but are unlikely to pursue listing in those places, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The listing […]
At least 180 Chinese listed companies will be forced to cancel or scale back planned rights offerings worth $97bn in response to regulations that target excessive fundraising used for dubious acquisitions and financial speculation. The rules come as Chinese regulators are increasingly concerned about the trend of “exit the real, enter the fake” — a phrase used to denote companies abandoning real economic activity in favour of […]
21 February 2017 Dubai – Auerbach Grayson & Company, LLC, a New York-based brokerage firm specializing in global trade execution and exclusive in-depth research on developed, frontier and emerging markets, announced today that it has partnered with Dubai-based Arqaam Capital, the specialist emerging markets investment bank, to provide U.S. investors with greater access to the Middle East and South Africa. Through its exclusive partnership with Arqaam Capital, […]
Success for banks selling large blocks of stock in the European market this year points to a supportive environment for new listings in the months ahead, bankers say. There have been 70 such accelerated offerings so far this year according to Dealogic, worth €11.3bn, more than double the €5.5bn sold in the same period a year ago when anxiety about the state of China’s economy prompted much […]
Kacific Broadband Satellites has announced that it will provide a 100Mbps satellite broadband service to under-served areas across more than 20 countries in South East Asia and the Pacific through a 702 Boeing satellite. The Kacific-1 satellite, being built by Boeing, will provide broadband via the projection of 57 Ka-band narrow beams targeted at geographically remote locations throughout those 20 countries, with the service to launch in […]
With US stocks in record territory and the S&P 500 index the most richly valued in more than a decade, some investors see dark clouds gathering on the horizon. The S&P 500, a broad measure of the stock prices of America’s largest companies, ended last week at a record high and has risen almost 10 per cent since the election of Donald Trump as president in November. […]
The UAE Navy on Sunday signed a multi-million-dollar deal to buy US-based Raytheon Company’s rolling airframe missiles (RAMs) for protection of its ships. RAM Block 2 is a supersonic, lightweight, quick-reaction, fire-and-forget weapon that is designed to protect ships against anti-ship missiles, helicopters, aircraft and surface craft. The amount of the deal was not disclosed amount. Chris Davis, president of Raytheon International, UAE, said: “The UAE wants […]
Pre-results jitters put Pearson among Monday’s sharpest fallers. Ahead of its full-year figures due Friday, Pearson faded 3.9 per cent to 642.5p. Since a profit warning in late January, the textbook publisher had rallied as much as 17 per cent amid hopes of another round of cost-cutting. But Pearson has already spent £610m on restructuring since 2013, to net cumulative savings of just £586m even before reinvestment, […]
By Simon Jessop and Sophie Sassard | LONDON LONDON Snap Inc, owner of popular messaging app Snapchat, kicked off its first investor roadshow on Monday, looking to persuade London money managers to back its initial public offering in the face of concerns about its growth prospects, valuation and corporate governance. The U.S. company, which has yet to make a profit, aims to raise between $19.5 billion and […]
As the world’s oil traders descend on London this week, the hot subject will be how to keep North Sea Brent, the benchmark for the global oil price, fit for purpose. S&P Global Platts , the oil pricing agency, is trying to execute the biggest overhaul of North Sea oil trading in a decade, with plans to rejig how prices in the region are set ahead of […]
Some of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds are increasingly striking their own private equity deals rather than relying on external fund managers, in a drive to cut costs and gain more control. With some $6.5 trillion in assets, sovereign investors already account for 19 percent of capital committed to private equity, according to data from research firm Preqin. But mega-funds such as the Abu Dhabi Investment […]
Submitted by Don Quijones via WolfStreet.com, Untouchable. Inviolable. Immunity. Impunity. These are the sort of words and expressions that are often associated with senior central bankers, who are, by law, able to operate more or less above the law of the jurisdictions in which they operate. Rarely heard in association with senior central bankers are words or expressions like “accused”, “charged” or “under investigation.” But in Spain this […]
Key to enhancing and diversifying its service offering in the domestic maritime industry 20 February 2017 Riyadh – Saudi Arabia – Bahri, a global leader in logistics and transportation, has opened a new office in Mumbai to strengthen its presence in the fast-growing Indian maritime industry and lay the foundation to offer diverse shipping services to domestic customers. The new office, located in the central suburb of […]
By Alexandra Ulmer and Alexandra Valencia | QUITO QUITO Leftist government candidate Lenin Moreno was within striking distance of winning the first round of Ecuador’s presidential election on Monday, as the Andean country’s electoral body counted ballots late into the night. In a nail-biter vote with eight candidates, Moreno was close to the threshold needed to avoid an April runoff and continue a decade-long period of leftist […]
SINGAPORE The U.S. economy is on “sound footing,” a hawkish Federal Reserve official said on Monday in a speech that cautioned against asking the central bank to solve problems beyond its control such as low productivity growth. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, at a forum in Singapore, did not comment specifically on interest rates. However she has dissented in the past in favor of quicker rate hikes […]
Stock markets in the Middle East were mixed in modest trading volumes on Sunday with Saudi Arabia and Qatar outperforming because of support from the banking sector, while Egypt fell as the currency hit a three-month high. Two-thirds of the 12 listed banks on Saudi Arabia’s bourse gained, lifting the index 0.1 percent. Alawwal Bank added 2.7 percent, with most activity occurring in the last hour of […]
Last week, as delegations from the new US administration, Russia, China and the EU gathered at the Munich Security Conference to discuss the strategic challenges facing the international community, a very different international assembly was taking place at the Abu Dhabi headquarters of the UAE’s Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development. As ministers in Germany prepared to debate matters diplomats define as “hard power” – military and […]
Photo The Iranian city of Ahvaz during a sandstorm on Saturday. Rain has turned the dust there into mud, which caused power stations to stop working. Credit Morteza Jaberian/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images TEHRAN — Days of protests against dust storms, power outages and government mismanagement in one of Iran’s most oil-rich cities subsided on Sunday after security forces declared all demonstrations illegal. Residents of Ahvaz, a […]
