Middle Eastern pay-television operator OSN has “no current plans” for a stock market flotation, its chief executive said on Sunday, following comments from its parent company that an initial share sale was expected to happen this year. OSN has operations across the Middle East and North Africa and annual revenue currently around $700 million. Last year, brokerage Arqaam Capital valued the company at $4.3 billion. Kuwait Projects […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The general in charge of Syria’s air defense has been killed in fighting near Damascus, an opposition monitoring group and Syrian security officials said Sunday. The officer, Lt. Gen. Hussein Ayoub Ishaq, one of the highest-ranking officers to die during the country’s three-year conflict, commanded 60,000 troops in Syria’s air defense forces, said Hisham Jabber, a retired Lebanese Army brigadier general who closely follows […]
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The strike had entered its second day when construction workers at Labor Camp 42 got word that their bosses from the BK Gulf corporation had come to negotiate. Mohammed Amir Waheed Sirkar, an electrician from Bangladesh, scrambled down the stairs to meet them. But when he got to the courtyard, he saw the truth: It wasn’t the bosses who had come. […]
The Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system, or the podcar, may soon become reality in Dubai. In Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, the little driverless cabins already do rounds as one of the first operating system in the world. Futuristic as they may seem, the system could well be feasible in Dubai, too, as a rising population with high mobility rates pushes towards a diversification of the transport […]
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations is under pressure to ratchet up aid to nongovernmental organizations that can operate in the vast sections of Syria under opposition control, as most of the humanitarian relief sponsored by the organization ends up in the western slice of the country held by President Bashar al-Assad. More than 85 percent of food aid and more than 70 percent of medicines went […]
|By TAP Staff| Sunil John, founder and CEO of ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, the region’s leading public relations consultancy, has been awarded the “SABRE Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement”, the first person from the Middle East to be honoured with this prestigious global award. The SABRE Awards, which are presented by The Holmes Group, a leading global public relations publishing organisation, acknowledged John’s position at the “forefront of change” […]
Saudi Arabian Mining Co will seek shareholder approval for a 5.6 billion riyal ($1.49 billion) rights issue to help to fund its expansion plans, the company said on Thursday. The company, better known as Ma’aden, intends to use the money to expand its phosphate and gold operations, as well as increase funding for its aluminium business, it said in a bourse filing, adding that a date for […]
Dana Gas, an energy company based in the United Arab Emirates, is trying to leverage its government’s financial aid to Egypt to get preferential treatment on payment for its goods there. Dana has operations in the Nile delta, Upper Egypt and the Gulf of Suez that produced the equivalent of 39,100 barrels of oil a day on average during the first quarter. Yet like other foreign energy […]
Samsung Electronics Co Chairman Lee Kun Hee, who leads Asia’s biggest technology company and helps generate about a quarter of South Korea’s economic output, remains in stable condition after emergency surgery following a heart attack. Lee, 72, is at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul after being resuscitated following an acute myocardial infarction, Rhee So Eui, a spokeswoman for Samsung Group, said in an e-mailed statement. Lee, who […]
If you are looking for an explanation as to why crude oil prices in Asia aren’t lower, then the blame rests squarely with Chinese stockpiling. China’s record imports of 6.78 million barrels per day (bpd) in April give the impression that oil demand is roaring ahead, but the reality is that almost half a million bpd is being put into storage tanks. The authorities don’t officially disclose […]
Iran’s Supreme Leader described as “stupid and idiotic” Western expectations for his country to curb its missile development, striking a defiant tone ahead of a fresh round of nuclear talks. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to mass produce missiles and said the nuclear negotiations were not the place to discuss Tehran’s defense program or to solve the problem of sanctions damaging the Iranian economy. […]
With Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. filing to go public, the biggest winner won’t be founder Jack Ma or his fellow executives or even venture capital backers like Silver Lake Management LLC. It’ll be Japan’s Masayoshi Son. Fourteen years ago, Son’s SoftBank Corp. started with a $20 million bet on a then-unknown Web portal connecting Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers. That site evolved into China’s biggest Internet shopping […]
An aerial view shows Dubai international airport, home to the national carrier Emirates Airways. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Dubai International Airport last week became the world’s busiest for international traffic. But the stellar performance in the first quarter is not likely to be repeated in the second as the airport is currently undertaking a major upgrade of its runways. Here, Chris Garton, senior vice president of airport operations […]
|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 […]
Having built a reputation on high-end luxury and opulence, Dubai is getting a makeover with some more affordable, one might even say cheaper, accommodation options. International hotel chains have wizened up to the need for mid-range hotels in a city that has built a reputation on excess. Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels Corp. on Monday brought its Hyatt Place brand to the Middle East, opening the hotel in older […]
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 […]
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 […]
It is now clear that the chances of a fire sale of Dubai’s ‘jewels in the crown’ — a reference to blue-chip assets such as Emirates airline and Jebel Ali Free Zone — stand completely mitigated as the emirate takes firm control of its financial situation. Analysts are in near agreement that Dubai’s sovereign debt is stabilising and deleveraging is progressing. A definite improvement has happened in […]
Emaar Properties is talking to regulators about the possibility of listing its shopping malls unit on Dubai Financial Market (DFM), the emirate’s main bourse, instead of Nasdaq Dubai, sources aware of the matter said on Monday. Last month, Dubai’s biggest property firm hired Morgan Stanley to manage an 8-9 billion dirham ($2.2-2.5 billion) listing of the unit, which would be one of the biggest equity deals in […]
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 […]
The first initial public offer of shares on Dubai’s main stock market for five years was 36 times subscribed, a sign of massive interest in equities among retail investors as the emirate’s economy booms. Investors subscribed 10 billion dirhams ($2.7 billion) to the fixed offer of 275 million shares in Marka, which were priced at 1 dirham each, Jamal Al Hai, chairman of the company’s founders committee, […]
| By K Raveendran| A number of banks have failed to complete the process of providing credit data of their customers for the past two years. The Etihad Credit Bureau, the federal government entity responsible for administering the credit data base, has expressed concern over the delay and pointed out that effectiveness of the bureau’s reports would depend on the submission of quality data by the banks […]
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 […]
