International Finance Corp., the World Bank’s investment arm, plans to sell a record $1 billion of rupee bonds offshore to fund its investments as India struggles to lure capital amid the slowest growth in a decade. The bond sale aims to “attract greater foreign investment in a time of renewed economic uncertainty across the world,” the Washington-based IFC said in a statement yesterday. The so-called synthetic debt […]
A stampede by competing apartment buyers in Dubai this week may have obscured signs that Dubai’s latest real estate boom is more restrained than the last one, which pushed the government close to default. Dubai’s property spree in the middle of the last decade was built precariously on bank loans, spelling disaster for indebted developers when prices eventually crashed. The crisis shook financial markets around the world. […]
Dubai developer Nakheel will restart work on one of the three palm-shaped islands that came to symbolise the excesses of the emirate’s boom years, three industry sources told Reuters, in a sign the Gulf state is bouncing back from its financial crisis. The sources said Nakheel, which was taken over by the government as part of a $16 billion rescue plan completed in 2011, would soon announce […]
EFG Hermes, Egypt’s largest investment bank, said its co-chief executive had resigned after 18 years with the firm. Hassan Heikal, who is also a board member, will leave the company on Oct. 31, according to a statement posted on the company’s website. Yasser El Mallawany will now be sole chief executive, having previously shared the post with Heikal. “With my responsibilities at the firm drawing to an […]
Kuwait’s new finance minister has issued a stinging criticism of the country’s bloated administration and bureaucratic red tape, saying the economy cannot continue growing robustly in the long term if they are not reformed. The comments by Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz al-Sabah, carried by state news agency KUNA on Monday, were his first extensive public policy statement since he took his job in August. Sheikh Salem left the […]
Yields for real estate in Dubai have compressed and investors are now open of acquiring assets at yields closer to emerging Europe and higher than established markets such as Moscow, the 2013 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Real Estate Investor Sentiment Survey by Jones Lang LaSalle said. The survey indicated strong demand amongst regional investors for Dubai real estate, leading to the creation of a seller’s […]
Gulf Finance House climbed to the highest in more than three months as the Bahrain-based investment bank replaced its chairman. The shares surged 11 percent to 57.3 fils in Dubai, the highest since June 20, bringing the gain this year to 37 percent. Gulf Finance House shares listed in Bahrain rose 7.7 percent and those traded in Kuwait advanced 6.5 percent. The investment company said Chairman Essam […]
Anyone who remembers the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. little more than five years ago knows what a global financial disaster is. A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever seen. Failure by the world’s largest borrower to pay its debt — […]
Asian shares, oil prices and the dollar came under pressure on Monday as politicians in Washington showed no signs of making progress to resolve the U.S. budget standoff, while safe-haven gold inched higher. Financial bookmakers expected European shares to follow Asia lower and open down between 0.4 and 0.5 percent. Democrats and Republicans remained far apart on ending the government shutdown, let alone reaching a deal on […]
President Barack Obama said he expects Congress will reach an agreement to raise the nation’s $16.7 borrowing limit in time to avert a default. “America has never not paid its bills,” Obama said in an interview with the Associated Press. “I don’t expect to get there.” The interview was released today as a partial shutdown of the U.S. government entered its fifth day and less than two […]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s retail plans with India partner Bharti Enterprises are “not tenable” and both sides are looking for the best way to move forward, an executive with the U.S. retailer told Reuters. Wal-Mart was expected to make a decision on its Indian retail plans later this month and Bharti will accordingly decide if those plans match its overall retail ambitions. “We created a franchise in retail […]
Barclays completed its 5.8 billion pound ($9.4 billion) fundraising on Friday to meet a capital shortfall identified by its regulator, after almost 95 percent of the British bank’s investors stumped up more cash. Barclays launched its rights issue three weeks ago, prompted by the British regulator’s demand that it improve its leverage ratio – a measure of its capital to assets – to 3 percent by mid-2014. […]
International funds selling investments in the UAE plan to lobby financial regulators to ease new product registration fees which they complain are much higher than the charges on local operators and could run into tens of thousands of dollars. “You do not create an efficient and competitive landscape by charging different amounts for local and international firms,” said one Dubai-based head of a global asset management firm […]
Investors who behave conventionally are likely to get burned if the political standoff over the federal budget and the debt ceiling ends up forcing the United States to default. But portfolio managers and strategists say that if investors put their trading hats on, they may be able to protect themselves and even possibly come out ahead. “The next two weeks could cause a lot of pain in […]
Abu Dhabi and Dubai have hired banks to advise on a possible merger of their two main stock exchanges, a state-backed deal that could energise financial markets in the United Arab Emirates, sources familiar with the plan said. Any merger of the exchanges would be one of the biggest reforms in the country’s financial industry in recent years; by making it easier for investors to operate across […]
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of India has thrown out a criminal complaint filed by HSBC against Avitel Post Studioz Ltd, which has sister companies in Dubai and Mauritius. After detailed investigation that lasted over three months, the EOW concluded that the allegations raised by HSBC against the company were false. The case was closed after the investigation team found no evidence to substantiate any allegation of […]
Amid low levels of trust in the financial industry and concerns over product mis-selling, a new CFA Institute report aims to improve transparency and investor protection by examining disclosures on costs, performance, and risks associated with packaged retail investment products (PRIPs) Packaged Retail Investment Products: Investor Disclosure Considerations for a Key Information Document, informs the EU policy debate and the draft regulation on PRIPs from the investor […]
Qatar Holding, the investment arm of the country’s sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), has bought NYSE Euronext’s 12 percent stake in the Qatar Exchange, the Doha-based bourse said in a statement on Tuesday. The deal, for which a price was not revealed, makes Qatar Holding the sole owner of Qatar Exchange, which operates the country’s securities market. QIA and NYSE Euronext signed a strategic partnership […]
Abu Dhabi government-owned Al Hilal Bank priced its debut $500 million five-year sukuk issue, a document from lead managers said on Tuesday, as Gulf issuers flood back to the market to take advantage of conducive market conditions. The transaction priced at par with a profit rate of 3.267 percent and a spread of 170 basis points over midswaps, the document said. The spread had tightened significantly from […]
Today hospitals and health systems worldwide are facing a plethora of challenges; these include aging populations, evolving disease profiles, increasing demand by patients for quality care, mounting cost pressures and an uneven distribution of expert resources. In addition, healthcare delivery is shifting from a focus on specific health episodes to a continuum approach, with a greater emphasis on education and prevention. Luckily, however, technology may hold the […]
Most regional markets slipped on Monday as fears of a U.S. government shutdown spurred slight profit-taking, but Dubai’s bourse booked its biggest quarterly gain in nearly six years. Dubai’s index shed 0.3 percent, easing off Sunday’s near five-year high. That trimmed its third-quarter gain to 24.3 percent, its best performance since late 2007. Trading volume in the quarter was the highest in four years. Shares in Dubai […]
The hospital sector is capable of yielding four times of the revenue generated by the hotel industry for the same amount of investment, a leading hospital management expert told the Hotel Show Dubai 2013 at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Sunday. The cost of putting up a hospital bed is almost the same as the cost of creating a room in a five-star hotel, but there […]
Bahrain-based Arcapita is aiming to build a new asset management firm with a debut local deal in the logistics, education or healthcare sector as the company recovers from the first Chapter 11 bankruptcy process undertaken by a Gulf Arab entity. The Islamic investment firm emerged from Chapter 11 on Sept. 17 after seeking court protection in March 2012 under hedge fund pressure ahead of the repayment of […]
Fund managers in the Middle East are set to pump more money into Saudi Arabia over coming months but may withdraw some funds from Dubai because of concern its red-hot market has risen too fast, a Reuters survey showed. The survey of 16 leading Middle East-based investment institutions, the first of its kind in the region, was conducted over the past 10 days by Trading Middle East, […]
