By Adam Jourdan and Tom Westbrook | SHANGHAI/SYDNEY SHANGHAI/SYDNEY Apple Inc fans from Sydney to Shanghai, the first customers worldwide to snap the new iPhone 7 off the shelves, cheered as they left stores on Friday brandishing their purchases, flanked by applauding sales staff. But underneath the usual fanfare, the crowds of enthusiasts and overnight campers were smaller than in past years. Some customers complained after the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Dubai-based Shaikhani Group announced a major foray in Dubai’s property market with 11 real estate projects with a collective value exceeding Dh3.5 billion (US$950 million) that are in various stages of development. Shaikhani Group’s 11 projects will deliver 2,100 residential and commercial units in Dubai Sports City, Jumeirah Village Circle and Dubai Silicon Oasis. Of these, the company is at an advanced stage of […]
By Ankur Banerjee Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) formally recalled 1 million Galaxy Note 7 smartphones sold in the United States, replacing or refunding the flagship phones, whose susceptibility to catching fire has damaged the image of the Korean powerhouse. Samsung received 92 reports of batteries overheating in the United States, including 26 reports of burns and 55 cases of property damage, the company said as it […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| DEWA has awarded the contract for Independent Power Producer (IPP) Advisory Services for the 200MW Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Plant to a consortium led by KPMG Lower Gulf Limited (Financial), alongside Mott MacDonald (Technical) and Ashurt (Legal). This is part of DEWA’s efforts to increase the percentage of renewable and clean energy in the energy mix, and support the Dubai Green Energy Strategy […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The generations of Millennials, meaning people between the ages of 19 and 35, as well as Centennials, denoting young people aged up to 18, will most probably end up poorer than their parents and grand parents, a Bank of America-Merrill Lynch report titled Thematic Investing: The New Kids on the Block has predicted. Gen Y (“Millennials”, 19-35Y) and Gen Z (“Centennials”, 0-18Y) are […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Patent grants from the GCC in chemistry have seen a five-fold increase in the last decade, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Producing up to USD102.6 billion worth of products a year, petrochemical industry is a main generator of patents from Gulf region along IT and electronics. “The petrochemical industry in the Gulf is of global standards where there is an […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Switching from conventional ‘Western’ financial practices to Islamic banking gives distinct advantages to banks, with the change improving the liquidity and value of stocks, a study of the merger between a Bahrian Islamic bank and a conventional bank revealed. Researchers at the Universities of Birmingham and Brighton studied a merger that took place in Bahrain, between an Islamic bank and a conventional bank […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City without light switches or water taps has much to teach people around the world about saving energy and precious resources. With its low-rise and energy efficient buildings, smart metering, excellent public transport and extensive use of renewable energy, the 2,000 citizens of Masdar City are living in a place which is a ‘green’ example to city planners around the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| With the Algiers meeting of OPEC drawing closer, the approach of the price boost initiatives is itself apparently evolving into something totally different from the initial idea of some sort of an output freeze. The new buzz word seems be ceiling rather than the freeze. Of course, the overriding consideration is voluntarism. According to reports, the OPEC producers, particularly the camp led by […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| There is a growing digital divide between those wealth managers who offer engaging and client-friendly websites that are continually updated and improved, and those who are lacking in a number of key areas. The quality of the websites of the latter group is, at best, stagnating, and mobile websites in particular remain a weakness. These are the key findings of the new report […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The extent to which the economic slowdown has affected the performance of companies is fairly well known. Still, when Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund and corporate entity Mubadala announced its half yearly result, it came as a shocker. The Mubadala Development Co., which has announced a merger with International Petroleum Investment Co., has posted a first half loss of AED 4.43 billion ($1.2 […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|Nearly half of the travellers believe losing money is one of the top-three threats they may face abroad, and credit card compromise is considered to be a top-three threat by 35% of users, according to research by Kaspersky Lab. The research also highlighted that there is a real danger when it comes to losing money when traveling: 22% of respondents have experienced such a […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The new bankruptcy law of the UAE envisages the setting up of a regulatory body called the Committee for Financial Restructuring to administer the law and its procedures. The Committee will be in charge of: overseeing the procedures of financial restructuring outside the scope of the court and will appoint experts in the field of financial restructuring, establish an electronic record of individuals against […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The DIFC Wills & Probate Registry (W&PR) has announced the launch of an online facility that provides eligible resident and non-resident property owners with a simple, cost-effective way to pass on their assets. This new facility has been made available on The Registry’s website www.difcprobate.ae from 6th September 2016. Property owners can complete a template will online that is specifically limited to real estate. […]
/By Arabian Post Staff/The UAE moved a step closer to a federal bankruptcy law when the country’s Cabinet approved the final draft of the new law. The law, which will help companies facing financial difficulties to restructure and avoid arbitrary liquidation and criminal proceedings by the state. Companies and individuals are now able to restructure their debt while avoiding bankruptcy liquidation. The law contributes to strengthening the […]
/by Arabian Post Staff/The global growth of asset management stalled as the industry in 2015 recorded its worst year since the 2008 financial crisis, according to a report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Growth in assets under management (AuM) stalled—or in the case of the Middle East declined 10%—and net new flows of assets, revenue growth, and revenue margins all dipped lower in 2015, according to […]
/by Arabian Post Staff/The impact of the softening global economy continues to hamper the UAE’s office market as redundancies in the oil and gas, finance and banking sectors have stifled demand for office space across the emirates, according to leading international real estate consultancy Cluttons. Cluttons’ 2016 UAE Property Market Report, highlights the consultancy’s expectation for office market performance throughout the year and expects declines of close […]
/By Arabian Post Staff/ UK bank Barclays move in 2008 to raise capital funding from private investors in Abu Dhabi and Qatar to avoid government bailout has snowballed into a major controversy as it now transpires that the bank itself loaned the money to these investors. Plc loaned $3 billion to Qatar to help fund a share purchase as the lender sought investments from the Middle East […]
/By Arabian Post Staff/Emirates Islamic announced it has successfully closed a US$ 250 million tap of its earlier US$ 750 million 5-year Sukuk issued in May 2016. This is under the bank’s US$ 2.5 billion Certificate Issuance Programme. The tap generated an order book of US$ 706 million, reflecting the solid regional and international investor confidence in the bank. Earlier this month, ratings agency Fitch affirmed Emirates […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Fitch Ratings has upgraded DP World Limited’s Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to BBB from BBB- and its Short-Term IDR to F2 from F3. The rating outlook is stable. The upgrade follows the Fitch announcement in November 2015 revising DP World’s outlook to Positive from Stable. It reflects the global trade enabler’s strong performance and stable cash flow generation supported by its geographical […]
While Salesforce didn’t shout from the rooftops about its recent decision to acquire the “living document” platform provider Quip, it clearly sees big potential in integrating Quip’s offerings into its own. Quip, a four-year-old San Francisco-based tech firm with just about 40 employees, is on track to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Salesforce, which is paying an estimated $750 million for the company. Since news of […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Residential batteries, together with battery applications in commercial, industrial and utilities, are considered to be the next big opportunity in batteries besides electric vehicles. Indeed, this will become a $6 billion market by 2026 as predicted by the new IDTechExResearch report “Batteries for Residential, Commercial, Industrial and Utility Applications 2016-2026: Technologies, Markets, Players and Opportunities”. On April 30, 2015, Tesla officially launched its residential and commercial/utility-scale […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Marya Group, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, announced an increase to its investment portfolio, bringing the total invested to more than $ 1 billion. Marya Group focuses on making private and public equity investments in cash-generating business with strong fundamentals across core economic sectors that are resilient: education, health care, food and beverage processing as well as real estate. Its investments are centered on […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|Saudi Arabia’s banks are seen more likely now than ever before to tap the international bond markets. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Saudi banks have less foreign currency debt outstanding compared to any other GCC country. Of the 57 securities outstanding from issuers in the kingdom, only one is a dollar bond from a bank, compared with more than 400 foreign-currency notes from […]
