Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) has held talks with banks about raising a loan to help fund its general operations, the first time the firm has commissioned such a facility in years, three banking sources told Reuters on Thursday. While it is a rarity for the company to raise money not tied to a specific project, a loan would be the latest example of a Dubai state-backed entity tapping […]
RAK Ceramics For RAK Ceramics, the world’s biggest manufacturer of tiles, 2014 may become one of the most transformative periods in the company’s 23-year history. Investment firm Samena Capital this year bought a 31% stake in the company that in the past two decades has become the flagship business of Ras al Khaimah, the most northern of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, […]
By Casey Sullivan Sat Sep 6, 2014 6:33am IST People walk at the headquarters of Alibaba in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, April 23, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Chance Chan/Files Alibaba Group Holding Ltd disclosed on Friday that it would pay $15.8 million in legal fees to law firm Simpson Thacher and other attorneys who advised the Chinese e-commerce giant on its upcoming IPO, six times what Facebook paid its […]
Telr, the payments company based out of Singapore and Dubai, has merged with a payment gateway in the United Arab Emirates to launch its services to ecommerce websites across the Middle East. Telr website The company, founded by ex-PayPal Middle East director Elias Ghanem, plans to offer ecommerce websites a payment gateway and delivery of goods, and will also provide short-term financing to help scale some startups. […]
KUWAIT. A recent report issued by KFH Research, a subsidery for KFH Group, sees continued positive outlook for the Kuwaiti construction industry, on the back of strong domestic demand in the Kuwaiti economy and a pick-up in government capital spending. Overview and Outlook “While we remain fundamentally cautious about the country’s medium-term investment outlook, we note that higher growth in bank lending over the last few months […]
DP World Jebel Ali, UAE. DP World After posting a decent set of numbers in the first half, a company can be excused if it sounds optimistic about its growth outlook. In DP World’s case – the numbers are more than decent. The Dubai-based ports operator, one of the largest globally, reported a solid 26% jump in six-month earnings as it added new capacity amid a pick […]
Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY) is in talks to sell a $3 billion stake in a gas field to Abu Dhabi-owned Mubadala Development Co., Petroleum Intelligence Weekly reported, without saying where it got the information. The companies are discussing the sale of as much as 30 percent of the $10 billion Shah natural gas project in the United Arab Emirates, the newsletter reported. Two officials at Mubadala’s media […]
New Delhi: State-owned oil marketing company Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd is looking at a possible tie-up with Reliance Industries Ltd to expand its oil retailing business. With retail diesel prices inching towards market rates, and petrol already de-regulated, the oil retailers are now reviewing their business strategies. Benefits for both HPCL is keen to expand its retailing operations, while Reliance Industries, having burnt its fingers […]
INTERNATIONAL. U.S. special operations forces made a failed attempt to rescue journalist James Foley and other Americans held hostage by Islamic extremists in Syria earlier this summer, the White House said in a statement. The secret mission was authorized by President Barack Obama after the administration’s national security team concluded that the hostages “were in danger with each passing day,” said Lisa Monaco, Obama’s assistant for homeland […]
|By TAP Staff| Emirates is likely to launch a flight service to Dubai from Indore by the end of this year, Indian television channel NDTV reported, quoting a Madhya Pradesh minister. “We want Emirates to launch a flight from Indore and are giving full support to the airline, which is also keen to connect the city to Dubai by air,” Madhya Pradesh Urban Administration and Development Minister, […]
People watched as rescue workers searched for victims under the rubble of a house in Rafah that witnesses said was destroyed on Thursday in an Israeli airstrike that killed three senior Hamas military commanders. By JODI RUDOREN and FARES AKRAM August 21, 2014 JERUSALEM — Israeli airstrikes killed three senior commanders of the armed wing of Hamas early Thursday in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, Israeli and Palestinian officials […]
Islamic State insurgents released a video on Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley, who had gone missing in Syria nearly two years ago, and images of another U.S. journalist whose life they said depended on U.S. action in Iraq. The video, titled “A Message To America,” was posted on social media sites. It was not immediately possible to verify its authenticity. Foley, who […]
Dubai is changing its financial rules in an effort to attract more asset managers – particularly those serving the richest and most risk-tolerant investors, such as hedge funds and private equity funds – to base themselves in the emirate. The rules create a new class of funds that can be domiciled in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), facing less stringent regulation and thus lower costs than […]
Kuwait’s Americana owns the franchise for popular fast-food chains such as TGI Friday’s, KFC (pictured above) and Pizza Hut in the Middle East and North Africa region. Bloomberg Kuwait’s Americana is in demand. Several investors, both regional and international, are apparently interested in acquiring a stake in the company that owns the franchise for popular fast-food chains such as TGI Friday’s Inc, KFC and Pizza Hut in […]
Shareholders of National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah (RAKBANK) have approved a 3.64-dirham ($0.99) per share offer to buy a majority stake in Ras Al Khaimah National Insurance Co, the bank said on Monday. RAKBANK’s proposed price is slightly below RAK insurance’s closing price on Aug. 17 of 3.7 dirhams. The stock has not traded on Monday. RAKBANK did not specify the size of the stake it […]
Two weeks, three continents, and 100 meetings. That — and founder Jack Ma celebrating his 50th birthday on the road — is what it will take for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to pull off the largest initial public offering in U.S. history. The Chinese e-commerce company is weighing a plan to start marketing the share sale to investors on Sept. 3, with management traveling across Asia, Europe […]
Shares of Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. (TAQA), which took an impairment of $858 million in North America last year, climbed the most in three weeks after it returned to profit in the second-quarter and said it plans to sell assets. The state-controlled utility, also known as Taqa, reported a second-quarter attributable profit of 239 million dirhams ($65 million), rebounding from a loss of 172 million a […]
Egyptian security forces intentionally killed hundreds of protesters following the military’s ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi, Human Rights Watch, or HRW, said on Tuesday, urging a United Nations’ probe into what it described as “crimes against humanity”. In a 188-page report based on a year-long investigation, the New York-based advocacy group said systematic and widespread killing of at least 1,150 Morsi supporters by security forces at […]
|By K Raveendran| The Chinese presence in the UAE, Gulf and the Middle East is well-entrenched, with China becoming almost a byword for manufacturing, engineering, construction and supply of any kind of goods. Over the years, China has also built up a global footprint for its consumer electronics industry, where the ingenuity of its people to come up with cheaper versions of the most sophisticated products not […]
Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed it was considering selling the international arm of its private bank, a deal one source said could net it as much as $1 billion, as the British government leans on it to focus more on domestic lending. The move means that Coutts, founded in the 18th century and best known as banker to Queen Elizabeth, could be split into two businesses – […]
DUBAI // An Asian man was arrested with almost 1,000 prescription pills after being told to sell them by his brother, who is serving time in Dubai’s central jail for drug dealing. Colonel Eid Mohammed Thani Hareb, director of the General Department of Anti-Narcotics at Dubai Police, said that the suspect, GAFH, 29, admitted dealing psychotropic substances. “The unemployed suspect, who is married, decided to follow in […]
U.S. Actions in Iraq Fueled Rise of a Rebel An image of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, taken from a video of a sermon he gave in July in Mosul. By TIM ARANGO and ERIC SCHMITT August 10, 2014 BAGHDAD — When American forces raided a home near Falluja during the turbulent 2004 offensive against the Iraqi Sunni insurgency, they got the hard-core militants they had been looking for. They also picked up […]
|TAP Special|Fighting in Iraq has had little impact on the overall market confidence in the Gulf as investors do not see any direct impact on the GCC, as a result of which currency forwards and credit default swaps have not risen. But several Gulf stocks with exposure to Iraqi Kurdistan could face fresh pressure in coming days. Abu Dhabi National Energy Co (TAQA) has announced suspension of […]
NEW DELHI: Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) has initiated the process of signing supply agreements with non-priority sector consumers such as paper and textiles units, even as power plants that had been given LoAs (letters of assurance) by the state-run company are facing shutdown in the absence of fuel.
Industry sources said WCL executives recently inspected sites of several prospective consumers from non-core sectors, including West Coast Paper Mills and Surya Laxmi Cotton Mills as a precursor to signing of fuel supply agreements.
The move by WCL, sources said, is in contradiction to the government’s recent emphasis on increasing coal supplies to power projects commissioned by March 2015.
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