Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi state-owned investment fund with a mandate to develop the emirate’s economy, said on Thursday its 2013 net profit tripled as soaring stock markets boosted the value of its financial investments. Mubadala, which has stakes in General Electric and private equity firm Carlyle, said it earned 1.45 billion dirhams ($395 million), up from 470 million dirhams in 2012. Financial investments swung from a loss […]
Grand Prairie-based Six Flags Entertainment Corp. is again attempting to broaden its international reach beyond North America into the Middle East. The theme park owner and operator said it’s partnering with Meraas Leisure and Entertainment, a Dubai-based real estate development company, to open a Six Flags-branded park in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The project will open in 2017 and be located in a multi-themed park […]
The U.S. government warned banks and other businesses on Friday to be on alert for hackers seeking to steal data exposed by the “Heartbleed” bug, as a German programmer took responsibility for the widespread security crisis. On a website for advising critical infrastructure operators about emerging cyber threats, the Department of Homeland Security asked organizations to report any Heartbleed-related attacks, adding that hackers were attempting to exploit […]
Dubai-based real estate investment trust Emirates REIT IPO said it had expanded the size of its initial public offer of shares on NASDAQ Dubai, the emirate’s first IPO since its financial crisis erupted in 2009, because of strong demand. Emirates REIT will raise $175 million in the IPO, which was 3.5 times oversubscribed, by selling 128.68 million new shares, it said in a statement on Sunday. In […]
AP | New York | Microsoft Corporation unveiled a new virtual assistant for Windows Phone devices Wednesday as it seeks to gain traction in a highly competitive and lucrative market for smartphones. The assistant, Cortana, is named after an artificial-intelligence character in the company’s ”Halo” video games. Cortana tries to be chatty like Apple’s Siri, while anticipating information you might want, like Google Now. Cortana is among the new […]
After pouring billions of dollars into cities including London, New York and Sydney, individual investors and developers in China are expanding into Dubai. About a thousand individual Chinese investors spent 1.3 billion U.A.E dirhams ($353 million) on land, residential units and office real estate in Dubai last year, according to data from the Dubai Land Department. That is a nearly threefold increase from the 486 million dirhams […]
A year after Citigroup Inc. declared the decade-long run of commodity gains over, wacky weather, dead piglets and Vladimir Putin have gotten in the way. While Citigroup rang “death bells” in April 2013 for the synchronized super cycle fueled by economic growth in China, extreme weather and supply squeezes led to surprise rallies in 2014’s first three months. Coffee hit a two-year high, cattle and hogs rose […]
Dubai property developer Nakheel is a targeting a 15 percent increase in annual profit in 2014 as it launches new projects and expands its leasing income, the firm’s chairman said on Wednesday. Government-run Nakheel agreed a $16 billion debt restructuring in 2011 in the wake of a property crash that sent Dubai’s house prices tumbling by more than half from a 2008 peak, oversupply and the global […]
Private equity firm Ithmar Capital, which manages over $800 million in investments, expects to close deals worth at least 1 billion dirhams ($270 million) this year as economies in the Gulf continue to recover from the global financial crisis, its top executive said on Monday. The Dubai-based firm, founded in 2005, invests in growth and buyout opportunities in Gulf-based or related companies. “We expect to do deals […]
Fierce solar blasts that could have badly damaged electrical grids and disabled satellites in space narrowly missed Earth in 2012, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The bursts would have wreaked havoc on the Earth’s magnetic field, matching the severity of the 1859 Carrington event, the largest solar magnetic storm ever reported on the planet. That blast knocked out the telegraph system across the United States, according to […]
|By Illeana Hoffman and Steven Lapidus| Being admittedly a bit too New York-centric, we started off to Dubai with preconceived notions… expecting a sort of Las Vegas-like cityscape, only with restrictive dress and limited food choice. To the extreme, we were even warned by some that we should take care to avoid inappropriate dress. In retrospect, how astoundingly misinformed we were! After 20 hours of traveling, space […]
The private equity arm of Dubai Holding has asked buyout groups to submit binding bids for its German packaging group Mauser, after putting on hold a larger auction which comprised two additional assets, three sources familiar with the transaction told Reuters. The sale of Mauser by Dubai International Capital (DIC) would be one of the largest asset disposals by the emirate since its debt crisis in 2009, […]
A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing over the South China Sea on Saturday, prompting China to send ships to scour the water for possible wreckage. The airline, speaking several hours after the plane had been due to land in the Chinese capital, said it was still too early to say whether the aircraft had crashed. It […]
Feedback Infra, a technical and professional services provider in the infrastructure sector, has acquired Dubai Consultants for an undisclosed amount. This gives Feedback Infra an opportunity to strengthen its footprint in the Gulf region. Established in 1975, Dubai Consultants is among architectural and structural engineering organisations engaged by the government of Dubai and the UAE to design and supervise their major housing and social infrastructure drives. Feedback […]
|By TAP Staff| The Dubai Mall gets more foot traffic than the Eiffel Tower, Niagara Falls and Disney World combined. Attracting 75 million visitors a year, it is one of the most visited tourist attractions on the planet. The Dubai Mall is no ordinary shopping center. Recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest shopping mall (in terms of total floor space) it is larger than […]
The new Savills World Cities Live-Work Index reveals that it now costs an average of just under $72,000-a-year per employee to rent residential and office space in Dubai, a thumping 41 per cent increase on a year ago, making the city the world’s seventh most expensive. However, the survey noted that this surge in rents came from ‘a relatively low base’ and that ‘the high costs in […]
Increase in number of seats in flights between India and Dubai will allow for multiple choice of travel and cheap connections for Indian passengers, sectoral experts said. “Enhancement of seat quotas with Dubai is a good thing for both countries. It will help enhance supply of seats, increase competition and help bring down fares,” said Amber Dubey, partner and India head of aerospace and defense at global […]
The Dubai Mall has refurbished the surface of its car parking facility, which is the most expansive in the Middle East & North Africa region with over 14,000 spaces across three separate high-rise buildings, with the award-winning Deckshield polyurethane deck coating system, from global resin flooring specialists Flowcrete Group. This system was chosen for its ability to maintain a smooth and colourful finish when faced with operational […]
BlackBerry Ltd plans to launch a new tool for business and government customers to manage mobile devices on their networks, part of a drive by the one-time smartphone pioneer to focus on its profitable enterprise or services business. The company said on Tuesday it would launch BlackBerry Enterprise Service 12, or BES12, to unify its existing platforms and provide clients with increased flexibility and security. Following a […]
BuzzFeed has come a long way from cat lists. This month one of its journalists was on the ground in Kiev reporting on the crisis in Ukraine, and last December it published an in-depth article on a Chinese dissident living in Harlem, New York. The kittens haven’t disappeared, but these days there is serious journalism as well. When Facebook Inc tweaked its News Feed filters in December […]
|By Kalyani Shankar| With the arrival of the AAP party chief Arvind Kejriwal in the national scene, after he quit his post as Delhi chief minister, the ensuing Lok Sabha elections seem to be interesting with one more player added to the confusing poll scene. The AAP is planning to contest more than 350 of the 542 seats. Don’t think Kejrwal is acting impulsively. He has taken […]
Only a thin blue hoarding separates the busy shopping district of Downtown Dubai from the new waterside office and residential area of Business Bay – yet the two locations feel worlds apart. Turn right along a narrow road from The Dubai Mall and you are suddenly faced with piles of sand and heaps of junk. Shiny green glass buildings stand next to half-finished structures of grey skeletal […]
Technology will cause disruption and create opportunity at an accelerating pace, placing unprecedented pressure on ‘society’, China will move towards a half-way house of democracy, USA will become the Disunited States of America while India will be burdened with 150 billion people below the poverty line by 2050, according to the conclusions of a think-tank. The report is produced by Tangent Link, investment analysts and fund managers with a focus […]
An asteroid estimated to be the size of three football fields whizzed close to Earth on Monday, roughly a year after one exploded over Russia and injured 1,200 people. Slooh Space Camera tracked the approach of the asteroid as it raced past the planet at about 27,000 mph (43,000 kmph), starting at 9 p.m. EST (2 a.m. GMT, Feb. 18), the robotic telescope service said in a […]
