Dubai-based hotel operator Jumeirah Group will invest 8 billion dirhams ($2.19 billion) to expand projects in 11 countries over the next three years, the official state news agency WAM reported on Friday. The group is part of Dubai Holding, a conglomerate owned by the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. The expansion will see an addition of 4,300 hotels rooms over the next three years, WAM […]
One year into the delivery of Dubai’s ‘Tourism Vision for 2020,’ significant first steps have been taken to achieve the target of attracting 20 million annual visitors by 2020, leading the emirate’s tourism authority to state a new ambition: for Dubai to become the world’s most visited city. If a growth rate similar to that achieved in 2013 is maintained – a 10.6 percent year-on-year increase equating […]
Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange plans to sell shares in an initial public offering as the Arab world’s largest bourse seeks to gradually open up to foreigners and boost institutional investment. Tadawul, as the gauge is known, will hire advisers soon for the share sale, Chief Executive Officer Adel Al Ghamdi said at a conference in Riyadh today. That would make it the second market in the Gulf […]
|By TAP Staff|The Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), owner of many of Dubai’s corporate jewels, such as the Emirates airline and the airport duty-free business, said its revenues grew 18 percent to $24.8 billion in the second half of 2013. The numbers were revealed in the prospectus released in connection with the plan to raise about $750m in its first Islamic bond issue. The latest full-year revenue […]
State-owned fund Investment Corporation of Dubai has mandated banks for a potential US dollar bond, according to a source. ICD, has appointed Citigroup, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD Capital, HSBC and Standard Chartered to a arrange a series of fixed income investor meetings in Asia, the Middle East and Europe starting on May 8. A Reg S US dollar offer may follow subject to market conditions.-Reuters
According to international real estate consultancy firm Cluttons, an upsurge in economic confidence following Dubai’s World Expo 2020 win, has led to heightened demand for commercial office space in the emirate. Rents for prime Grade A space in particular have continued to climb with a 10% increase recorded in Q1, pushing average rates in this category to AED 220 per square foot. Cluttons Dubai Spring 2014 Commercial […]
As Dubai freight-forwarding firm Able Logistics Group began preparing early this year to go public, it conducted a leveraged recapitalisation, taking on fresh bank debt so it could pay a cash dividend to shareholders. By the standards of developed Western markets, the transaction was routine. But for the Middle East it was an unusually creative deal, a sign that the region’s private equity industry is finally building […]
Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways on Sunday said its strategy of buying stakes in European airlines was bringing fresh competition to the region, despite close scrutiny by regulators over whether its investments comply with European ownership rules. State-owned Etihad is building up a network of minority stakes in airlines around the world as it seeks to drive traffic to its Abu Dhabi hub. “We are bringing competition in […]
Emaar Economic City plans to raise 1 billion riyals ($267 million) to help finance construction of the King Abdullah Economic City and will spend 13 billion riyals developing the Saudi Arabian project over the next four years. The company, a unit of Dubai-based Emaar Properties, expects to arrange the loans from two or three banks before the end of 2016, Fahd Al Rasheed, chief executive officer of […]
French retail giant Carrefour SA has begun making plans to exit its India wholesale operations, the Times of India reported on Saturday. Carrefour operates five wholesale cash-and-carry outlets in India and, after foreign investment rules were eased in 2012, it had been widely expected to set up a chain of supermarkets. The company has seen senior-level exits from its India business recently and some employees may be […]
The United Arab Emirates will have its own stand-alone exchange-traded funds with this week’s launch of the iShares MSCI UAE Capped ETF (UAE). On May 30th, both Qatar and the UAE will get promoted by the MSCI index folks being frontier markets to becoming full-fledged emerging markets. As of this year’s first quarter, the UAE and Qatar occupied the second- and third-largest country weights in the MSCI […]
With its $2 billion purchase of Oculus Rift, Facebook has made its second bold acquisition of a rising technology star, little more than a month after its $19 billion mega deal with WhatsApp. This time it’s not the price tag surprising everyone, but the strategy. Does Mark Zuckerberg envision a future where strapping a headset to our faces becomes the default route to going on Facebook? It’s left many scratching their heads. Zuckerberg, […]
When French wine and cognac bottle maker Saverglass decided to expand three years ago, it chose a relatively remote, less affluent location in the United Arab Emirates for its plant rather than the business hubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The company sited its 75 million euro ($105 million) factory, which produces some 400,000 bottles a day, in the desert emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, an hour’s […]
Middle East fund managers have become more cautious about stock markets in the United Arab Emirates because of concern that Dubai may be overheating, a monthly Reuters survey shows. The survey of 15 leading investment managers, conducted over the past 10 days, found they are still bullish about the region’s stock markets in general: 33 percent expect to increase their Middle East equity allocations in the next […]
The U.S. government lost $11.2 billion on its bailout of General Motors Co, more than the $10.3 billion the Treasury Department estimated when it sold its remaining GM shares in December, according to a government report released on Wednesday. The $11.2 billion loss includes a write-off in March of the government’s remaining $826 million investment in “old” GM, the quarterly report by a Treasury watchdog said. The […]
|By TAP Staff| Gulf-based borrowers, who have been returning to the international debt market in recent days after several months of relatively light issuance, are reporting strong investor interest. Amid geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and economic instability in some emerging markets, Gulf economies have stood out because of their stability, thanks to their trade and state budget surpluses. The contrast appears to created attractive conditions for them […]
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 […]
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 […]
Investors are switching their attention back to developing countries’ debt after flirting with U.S. and European junk bonds during a year of turbulence in emerging markets. A long sell-off in anticipation of U.S. stimulus withdrawal meant emerging sovereign debt posted negative returns last year but the sector has enjoyed one of its best starts to a year in a decade in 2014, investors say, with returns of […]
Emirates NBD, Dubai’s biggest bank, will only reverse provisions on its exposure to conglomerate Dubai World after seeing further progress on asset sales and debt repayment, it said on Thursday. Emirates NBD is Dubai World’s biggest creditor with an exposure of more than 9 billion dirhams ($2.5 billion), against which it has set aside provisions of 5 percent. If that debt is reclassified as performing, it will […]
While World Expo 2020 will be associated with some of the massive multibillion dollar real estate and hospitality projects, Smart City is determined to design and implement cutting edge technology solutions to plan and manage the day to day activities of the Emirate. Hence, it is significant that massive growth and development initiative in Dubai should be backed with a philosophy of sustainability, which can ensure wellbeing […]
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 […]
Dubai Holding Commercial Operations Group (DHCOG), part of a conglomerate owned by the emirate’s ruler, will repay $319 million of debt more than 18 months early, the latest state-linked company to settle restructured loans ahead of time. Sovereign-linked entities in Dubai were forced to renegotiate billions of dollars of liabilities at the turn of the decade after a local property crash and a lack of refinancing options […]
