Just like the bulk of political pundits and mainstream media commentators, opportunistic internet entrepreneurs were caught off guard by the shock result of Tuesday’s United States presidential election. The day after Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States it was still possible to find “Don’t blame me, I voted for Trump” T-shirts and hoodies online. But the full story of the shock sustained by […]
By Vladimir Soldatkin | MOSCOW MOSCOW Russia’s top oil producer Rosneft reported strong cashflow on Friday, strengthening its position for a continuing acquisition drive despite a worse than expected 77 percent decline in third-quarter net profit. Rosneft, which bought a controlling stake in mid-sized oil company Bashneft for 323 billion rubles ($4.9 billion) last month, has been looking for ways to increase its global exposure and become […]
UAE. In the GCC, healthcare, industrials & materials and financial services have recorded the largest fluctuations in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, despite the gradual decline witnessed by the industry since 2014. According to research published today in The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) 2016 M&A Report, Masters of the Corporate Portfolio, companies that regularly acquire and divest businesses as part of their corporate strategy consistently outperform less […]
Emirates and the Gulf’s two other major airlines are likely to get pride of place at Frankfurt airport’s new terminal, allowing them to offer bigger premium-class lounges to compete more aggressively with local rival Deutsche Lufthansa AG. Frankfurt’s Terminal 3 will probably house Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways PJSC of Abu Dhabi, as well as Dubai-based Emirates, the world’s biggest carrier on international routes, Matthias Zieschang, chief […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Crossing from Syria into Lebanon on Tuesday night proved to be a parable for the diametrically opposed ways the world sees the election of Donald J. Trump. At the passport counter, a Syrian officer’s face lit up when he saw an American traveler. “Congratulations on your new president!” he exclaimed, giving an energetic thumbs up. Mr. Trump, he said, would be “good for Syria.” […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|Donald Trump’s election as American President is expected to further complicate OPEC’s efforts to strike a deal for output freeze. OPEC was already struggling to finalize a deal and with Trump, it has become all the more difficult. In fact, Trump’s surprise victory threatens to deepen a market sell-off, according to UBS Group AG. Yet the uncertainty arising from the President-Elect’s policies — from […]
WASHINGTON — The United States has killed 119 civilians in Iraq and Syria since it began military operations against the Islamic State there in 2014, military officials said Wednesday. In each case, the American military followed the proper procedures and it did not violate laws of armed conflict, officials said. “Significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome,” said Col. John J. Thomas, a spokesman for United […]
Wearable camera maker GoPro Inc said on Tuesday it would recall about 2,500 of its recently introduced Karma drones because they lost power during use. GoPro’s shares were down 4.7 percent at $10.35 in extended trading. The recall comes less than a week after GoPro downgraded holiday forecasts to $600 million to $650 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, below analysts average estimate of $666.14 million […]
I took this video while on what often felt like a surreal bus ride through war-torn Syria. The video begins on the edge of the city of Aleppo, its western, government-held half. The area we drove through is all government held but has been intensely fought over, again and again, and has changed hands several times. The route we took connects the city to a key supply […]
UAE. Low natural gas and electricity prices have created a tough competitive environment for renewable energy, but this has remarkably had little impact on the momentum of alternative energy growth, finds a new Deloitte report entitled, “Alternative Thinking 2016: Five game-changers that are powering the future of renewable energy.” The report identifies the important trends and opportunities in the renewable energy industry. It also presents “what if” […]
By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park | SEOUL SEOUL South Korean prosecutors raided the offices of Samsung Electronics on Tuesday as part of a probe over a political scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her friend who is alleged to have exerted improper influence in state affairs. A prosecution official told Reuters the search is related to the scandal involving the president’s friend, Choi Soon-sil, but declined […]
By Julia Fioretti | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS Britain’s privacy watchdog said on Monday that Facebook (FB.O) has agreed to suspend using data from UK users of its WhatsApp messaging app for advertisements or product-improvement purposes after the watchdog said consumers weren’t properly protected. The watchdog said the social media giant faces action if it uses such data without valid consent. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) had said in […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The growing list of OPEC members seeking exemptions from a planned supply cut has investors seeing future price drops, Bloomberg reports. Money managers increased bets on lower West Texas Intermediate oil for the first time in five weeks as Iraq joined Iran, Nigeria and Libya in seeking to be excluded from OPEC’s first agreement to reduce output in eight years. The deal was reached […]
By David Shepardson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON AT&T Inc may bypass a powerful telecommunications regulator by offloading a Time Warner broadcast station, analysts say, as the telecommunications giant braces for what is expected to be a lengthy and tough antitrust review of its proposed $85.4 billion deal to buy Time Warner Inc. Dallas-based AT&T said late Saturday the deal would need approval of the U.S. Justice Department and […]
|By Matein Khalid| The fall in oil prices since 2014 has triggered a liquidity crunch and higher funding costs in the UAE banking system. EIBOR is almost double the London interbank rate LIBOR. Non-performing loan (NPL) have begun to rise as property prices have fallen 20% from their peak and corporate/SME borrowers are hit by a sharp downturn in the business cycle. DIB shares reflect these macro […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The three-month Saudi Interbank Offered Rate, or Saibor, used as a benchmark to price loans, has climbed 15 successive months to the highest in seven years, Bloomberg reported. It gained 84 basis points this year to 2.385 percent on Sunday, compared with a 27 basis-point advance in the London Interbank Offered Rate for dollars. Meanwhile, the loans-to-deposit ratio among Saudi banks, a key measure of […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| GE marked a new milestone in its operational presence in Kuwait with the opening of the GE Kuwait Technology Center (GEKTC), a flagship facility that will foster localized research, provide hands-on training and build an innovation ecosystem specifically for the power sector. Approved by the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA) for a Foreign Investment License last year, the 6,000 sq meter GEKTC, […]
By Sankalp Phartiyal and Anya George Tharakan | MUMBAI/BENGALURU MUMBAI/BENGALURU Infosys Ltd cut its annual revenue growth target for the second time in three months as India’s software service exporters feel the pinch of major Western clients holding back on spending as they wait to see how November’s U.S. presidential election and Europe’s Brexit drama play out. While it reported second-quarter net profit grew 6.1 percent, the […]
HP Inc. expects to lay off between 3,000 and 4,000 employees in the next three years amid slumping demand for its products, the company said Thursday. The layoffs come one year after HP Inc., the manufacturer of printers, laptops and personal computers, was spun off from Hewlett-Packard in Silicon Valley’s biggest corporate breakup. The other company in the split, HP Enterprise, provides data center technology and business […]
|By Matein Khalid| The Algiers pact was a game changer in the international oil markets. Crude oil prices have risen to three month highs above $50 Brent after OPEC agreed to cut output to the 32.5 – 33 MBD range, with the symbolic Saudi-Iranian deal reinforced by a sharp drop in US inventories and Hurricane Matthew’s havoc in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for OPEC, the US land rig […]
By Mai Nguyen and My Pham | HANOI HANOI Samsung Vietnam will maintain its current staff numbers and its exports target this year, the firm said on Wednesday, despite the parent company scrapping its flagship Galaxy Note 7 phone following a series of battery fires. Samsung Electronics, which employs around 110,000 people in Vietnam, finally pulled the plug on the new Note 7 phone on Tuesday, less […]
By Se Young Lee | SEOUL SEOUL Samsung Electronics Co slashed its quarterly profit estimate by a third on Wednesday, soaking up a $2.3 billion hit from ditching its flagship smartphone in what could be one of the costliest product safety failures in tech history. Quantifying the financial pain of Tuesday’s move to scrap the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after a global recall and weeks of mounting […]
By Se Young Lee | SEOUL SEOUL Samsung Electronics’ (005930.KS) worst-ever recall could cost the company as much as $17 billion after it halted sales of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 for a second time, spelling an almost certain end for the ill-fated premium model. Samsung announced the recall of 2.5 million Note 7s in early September following numerous reports of the phones catching fire and on […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saudi Arabia said it was holding investor meetings in London, Los Angeles, Boston and New York from Wednesday to sell benchmark bonds maturing in five, 10 and 30 years. The issue is expected to be at least $10 billion. “It’s very good timing,” Bloomberg quoted Angelo Rossetto, a trader at GMSA Investments Ltd. in London, as saying. “I wouldn’t say now or never as […]
