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 […]
By Liana B. Baker, Avik Das and Soham Chatterjee Sat Sep 6, 2014 5:31am IST People play in a hall inside Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, April 23, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Chance Chan/Files REUTERS – Alibaba Group Holding Ltd seeks to raise more than $21 billion in an IPO that will value the Chinese e-commerce giant at up to $163 billion and rank as the largest-ever technology […]
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. . . more could be done to improve the productivity of each police officer, says Tom Winsor Photo: Alamy At first, when her south London flat was broken into last winter, Zena Ambrose couldn’t have been more impressed with the response from the police. The communications consultant returned home from work late at night to find a burglar had stolen her MacBook, driving licence and designer clothes […]
Sharjah is offering investors an enticement that fellow emirate Dubai doesn’t as the sheikhdom gears up for its first Shariah-compliant bond sale this month: a credit rating. The emirate, which is more than twice the size of New York City, may price the debt to yield 2.5 percent to 3 percent if it’s a five-year issue, according to three fixed-income analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That compares with […]
Rents are either falling or holding steady in Dubai’s freehold communities, reveals the latest update of Real Estate Regulatory Agency’s (Rera) rental index, as compared to the update released in May. Downtown Dubai, an upscale community, is witnessing rental declines across all categories of apartments – studios, one- and two-bed units. Studio rates are down 6.25 per cent to 7.14 per cent, as per the final index […]
Emirates NBD (ENBD), Dubai’s largest lender, plans to sell a benchmark-sized capital-boosting bond, a document from lead managers said on Monday, looking to take advantage of favourable markets to strengthen its reserves. ENBD has chosen Citigroup, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered and its own investment banking arm to arrange investor meetings ahead of a potential issue, the document said, confirming what banking sources told Reuters […]
Barack Obama got a warm reception in Rhode Island last week, yet his lack of strategy has dismayed many others Photo: AP Just in case you thought that the Leader of the Free World was secretly harbouring a calculated, well-developed plan for bringing Isil under control and putting Russia’s imperial leader back in his box, Barack Obama banged that idea firmly on the head last week. He gave […]
The Republic of South Africa will begin marketing its debut sukuk from September 8. The roadshow will begin in London, before heading to Dubai and Abu Dhabi on September 9, Riyadh on September 10, and Qatar the following day. The roadshow will wrap up on September 12, though the destination is still being decided, according to a lead. A 144A/Reg S dollar sukuk transaction may follow. BNP […]
Hong Kong’s government will hold investor meetings next week for its maiden Islamic bond issue, a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said on Thursday. A meeting will be held in Hong Kong on Monday before one in Singapore on Tuesday, Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday and meetings in Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi and London on Thursday. The AAA-rated government earlier mandated HSBC, Standard Chartered, CIMB Group […]
Claire Hajaj with her mother, father and brother in Kuwait, 1979 At 11, I discovered I was a stranger in my own family. It happened at a relative’s “do” in Regent’s Park – a bar mitzvah, or a wedding. I remember soft-pink tablecloths, gilded place-cards and cutlery gleaming like silver fish. A board at the reception-room entrance listed table numbers and names in grand, italicised print. I […]
Two months ago, the U.K. became the first Western nation to sell Islamic bonds. But missing from the list of advisers and arrangers on the £200 million transaction were any of the country’s six shariah-compliant banks. One of them, Bank of London and the Middle East, doesn’t appear to have any hard feelings about it and applauds the rise in sovereign sukuks as they will help accelerate […]
UAE. With its oil wealth, population growth and strong demand for all manner of industrial and consumer goods, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is an attractive market for many manufacturers. There are, however, potential pitfalls in doing business in the region, particularly when it comes to appointing local agents to distribute products in the region. Many states in the MENA region have enacted commercial […]
The Floating Cinema drops anchor on the Grand Union Canal at King’s Cross, London Photo: HYDAR DEWACHI ‘It’s really captured people’s imagination,” enthuse producer Anna Ramsay and curator Laura Harford as they sit on the deck of the Floating Cinema, their 60ft wide-beam canal boat fitted out as a mini-Odeon. “I think it’s because it’s something so unusual, not at all what they expect to see on a […]
A revival of international bond issues from the Gulf is set to draw heavy demand from local and foreign investors, despite the latest geopolitical upheavals in the Middle East and the approach of higher U.S. interest rates. Gulf bond issuance has dried up since early July, because of a traditional summer lull in local investor activity as well as global market instability due to the crisis in […]
The United Nations condemned on Monday “appalling, widespread” crimes by Islamic State forces in Iraq, including mass executions of prisoners that could amount to war crimes. U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay condemned “grave, horrific human rights violations” being committed by Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim group which has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria to the alarm of the Baghdad government and its allies in […]
It’s slim, sleek, black and silver, and comes with Bluetooth. But unlike the latest mobile phone, you won’t be showing off the Black Pro 6500 to anyone outside your bathroom. This hi-tech gizmo from Oral-B – which has its own app – is the latest in toothbrush technology, and has a £250 price tag to match. It claims to be able to strip 100 per cent more […]
By Chris Katje: Under Armour (NYSE:UA) has been in the news a lot during the month of August. The sports apparel retailer launched a large global campaign aimed at women and also has its eyes set on its largest marketing deal ever. A targeted approach at women and the possible signing of NBA superstar Kevin Durant will have a huge impact on short and long term growth […]
The execution of U.S. journalist James Foley by someone with a British accent has sparked soul-searching in the U.K. as to how and why the country has become an exporter of extremists to the Middle East. Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to redouble efforts to stop radicalized Britons traveling to Iraq and Syria to “take part in extremism and violence.” “The fundamental problem is as long as […]
|By TAP Staff| Abu Dhabi, along with London, Shanghai, San Fransisco, Mumbai and other global cities, will be the venue for the meeting of Global Opportunity Network panels to discuss how the pressure for change can be used to create more resilient and sustainable societies. Global Opportunity Network has presented five risks that will inspire this year’s opportunity panels. The Abu Dhabi meeting will take place on […]
By Orange Peel Investments: The news today was that Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) came up with $16.65 billion to resolve the biggest liability having to do with the subprime crisis from 2008. It’s the end of a process that has been a dark cloud hanging over the head of Bank of America since they made a proper mess out of the Countrywide deal; widely regarded as one […]
By S. Sethuraman As fiscal 2015 nears the mid-year, hope revives stronger for at least 5.5 per cent growth, despite a wayward monsoon, and should it materialize, the Modi Government could well trumpet that it had overcome the UPA baggage of “economic mess” and below 5 per cent growth over the last two years. But even growth in the 5-6 per cent range, based on […]
If you wanted to make a quick buck in property, Dubai would have been the place to do it in the last couple of years. And the desert of superlatives is still going strong despite a partial slowdown. According to CBRE Group , apartment prices increased by a more modest 3.2 percent in the second quarter of 2014, bringing gains over the last year to 21 percent. […]
NEW DELHI: After basing its most potent Sukhoi-30MKI fighters at Tezpur and Chabua, India has now begun deploying six Akash surface-to-air missile (SAM) squadrons in the northeast to deter Chinese jets, helicopters and drones against any misadventure in the region. Defence ministry sources on Thursday said IAF has started getting deliveries of the six Akash missile squadrons, which can “neutralize” multiple targets at 25-km interception range […]
Militant Group Says It Killed American Journalist in Syria James Foley, in a photo from the website FreeJamesFoley.org, in Aleppo, Syria, in November 2012, the month he disappeared. By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI August 19, 2014 The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria posted a video on Tuesday that it said showed the beheading of James Foley, an American journalist who was kidnapped in Syria nearly two years ago, according to […]
