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Police secure the main entrance of the German Axel Springer publishing group headquarters in Berlin January 8, 2015. Reuters/Hannibal Hanschke/Files FRANKFURT After its failed bid to buy the Financial Times, Germany’s biggest news publisher Axel Springer will concentrate on digital expansion through small and medium-sized deals, the company said on Tuesday. Springer was outbid last month by Japan’s Nikkei in an attempt to buy the FT from […]

Creditors of Drydocks World, the Dubai government-owned company seeking to revise part of a $2.3 billion debt restructuring deal which it signed in 2012, have chosen Moelis & Co as their adviser, sources familiar with the matter said. The selection of the New York-based advisory company should open the way to Drydocks offering a proposal to creditors, a move expected to happen later this quarter, with a […]

Payfort, a leading online payment service provider, has launched its installments service in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The new service that makes it easy for ecommerce merchants to offer pay-via-installment options to customers and gives consumers greater purchasing power. “Many consumers show a preference for purchasing-via-installments, but methods of processing monthly installments in common usage in the region have proved cumbersome for consumers,” […]

Viva, Kuwait’s fastest-growing telecom operator, has reported a net profit of KD21.6 million ($71.3 million) for the first half of the year, jumping 14 per cent compared to the same period last year. Total revenues reached KD134 million ($442.5 million), growing 18 per cent when compared to KD113 million ($373.1) in H1 2014. Operational profit increased by 24 per cent, from KD20 million ($66 million) in H1 […]

INTERNATIONAL.  New research from PwC projects that traditional assets under management (AuM) in 12 markets across Africa will rise to around $1,098 billion by 2020, from a 2008 total of $293 billion. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 9.6%. Traditional asset management, in particular the mutual fund industry, is expanding aggressively across Africa. This will largely be driven by a number of factors: […]

|TAP Special| UAE finance company Dunia may be for sale and Dubai’s Majid Al Futtaim Holding is believed to be among the suitors. According to Bloomberg, MAF Holding and KKR & Co. are among companies weighing a bid for the Abu Dhabi consumer finance firm. MAF already has a personal finance business, which offers the Najm credit cards and other products. There could be good synergy between […]

UAE.  The MENA Private Equity Association, a non-profit organisation supporting the development of the private equity and venture capital industry in the Middle East and North Africa, launched today its ninth “MENA Private Equity & Venture Capital” Annual Report. According to the Report, which was compiled in collaboration with Deloitte and Zawya – Thomson Reuters, 2014 was a significant year for the industry and has demonstrated the […]

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ABU DHABI // Bertrand Piccard, co-founder of the Solar Impulse project and one of the pilots of Solar Impulse 2, the world’s first totally solar-powered aircraft, is looking to his staunchest supporters for funds to continue his journey around the world. Mr Piccard returned to Switzerland looking for €20 million (Dh80m) to repair the damage caused to Solar Impulse 2 as it flew to Hawaii. As the […]

The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) is considering introducing with the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) futures and options contracts for specific Abu Dhabi stocks as well as market index futures, a top DME official said. The exchanges have established a joint committee which will examine the issue over the next few months, DME Managing Director Owain Johnson told Reuters. “You have to go to the market and […]

The yield on bonds of Abu Dhabi has decreased four basis points since 22 July, the day the UAE announced the move to remove fuel subsidies, Bloomberg reported. While the average yield on developing-country debt has increased 13 basis points since the 22 July announcement of fuel-price deregulation, the yield on bonds of Abu Dhabi has declined four basis points. The yield on bonds of the neighboring […]

Dubai realtor S&K blames weak market for bankruptcy DUBAI, 1 days ago Dubai-based real estate agency S&K Estate Agents said a deteriorating property market in the emirate contributed to its decision to file for bankruptcy and be liquidated. “Simply put, the revenue being generated by the business drastically reduced over the first half of 2015, without enough income to cover operational costs,” S&K said in an emailed […]

Western Union….aiding Greece during financial crisis Western Union activates money transfer into Greece ATHENS, 1 days ago The Western Union Company, a leading global payment services, has activated international remittances into Greece, allowing customers to receive cash payouts in minutes from almost anywhere around the world at select walk-in retail agent locations. International and domestic Western Union Money Transfer transactions are available for payout at up to […]

|TAP Special by K Raveendran| The Dubai residential market continues to face downward pressure as rents and sale prices decline. It’s perhaps indicative of a systemic shift that the current phase’s first bankruptcy has just been filed. According to a JLL report citing the REIDIN indexes, the sales index dropped by 8% for the one-year period ending June 2015, with declines in apartment sale prices exceeding that […]

The regulator of Dubai’s financial free zone said on Wednesday it had fined Arqaam Capital $50,000 after investigating the Dubai-based investment bank over compliance with anti-money laundering rules. The investigation followed a periodic risk assessment by authorities that identified deficiencies in Arqaam’s systems and controls to prevent money laundering, the Dubai Financial Services Authority said in a statement. The DFSA said its agreement with Arqaam did not […]

|By Matein Khalid|So Pearson PLC has sold the FT Group (with its flagship Financial Times newspaper) to Japan’s Nikkei Inc for $1.32 billion. Pearson will use the cash proceeds to increase its investment in education publishing businesses in the US and Canada, now 75% of revenues. This deal is a milestone in the history of newspaper publishing and my own life as an investor/financial journalist. I discovered […]

|TAP Special By K Raveendran| With the fuel subsidies issue having been settled, attention now shifts to the possibilities of introducing value added tax as another option to bolster the UAE’s financial resources. Starting August 1, 2015, special grade petrol across fuel stations in the UAE will cost Dh2.14 per litre, up 24.4 per cent from Dh1.72. The super grade will cost Dh2.25, up 22.9 per cent […]

UAE. A recent qualitative report sponsored by Citi and conducted by Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy, studied the personality of HNWI in the UAE. The results of the research revealed the different needs that they believe are impacting their disposition towards wealth management and analyzed their attitudes towards investments. The participants were represented by a small group […]

DUBAI // A foundation providing help and shelter for abused women and children has reported a rise of two-thirds in calls to its hotline for the first half of this year. The Dubai Foundation for Women and Children received 2,034 calls in the six months – an increase of 63 per cent – 552 of which were about women and children suffering some form of abuse. Director […]

Mena lagging in adopting cyber security policies BEIRUT, 1 days ago Despite the current global focus on cyber security issues including hacking, data losses, breaches and other information leaks, organizations in the Mena region still do not have formal cyber security initiatives in place, a report said. In keeping with international trends, managing Compliance Risk remains a high priority for organizations across Mena region, explained the Middle […]

Dubai Financial Market (DFM), the Gulf’s only listed stock exchange, reported a 48 percent fall in second-quarter net profit on Monday as bourse turnover slumped. The firm, which runs securities trading in Dubai, made a net profit of 132.4 million dirhams ($36.05 million) in the three months to June 30, down from a net profit of 252.5 million dirhams in the year-ago period, a statement said. DFM’s […]

INTERNATIONAL.  On the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Kenya for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, GeoPoll, the Global Entrepreneurship Network and the U.S. State Department released a survey of 1,000 business owners throughout sub-Saharan Africa on entrepreneurship in their countries. GeoPoll surveyed 200 entrepreneurs per country in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, asking them what resources are most needed […]

UAE. Women are just as likely as men to find employment in small and medium-sized businesses in the UAE, according to the latest research by business intelligence company MEED. Of the more than top 50 SMEs in the Emirates which participated in the study, 50 per cent said they employ an equal number of women and men in their organisations. About 40 per cent even reported having […]

A surge in shares of Amlak Finance since they returned to Dubai’s stock market last month has raised concerns about a new wave of unbridled speculation on one of the region’s biggest exchanges. The Islamic mortgage lender has soared about 150 percent since it restarted trading in early June after a six-year suspension due to debt problems. At its latest close of 2.52 dirhams, the stock is […]

A zoomed image of a computer screen showing the Amazon logo is seen in Vienna November 26, 2012. To match Special Report TAX-AMAZON/ Reuters/Heinz-Peter Bader Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) swung to an unexpected quarterly profit on higher sales in North America, its popular Prime subscription service and growing demand for its Web services, sending the online retailer’s shares up more than 17 percent. Amazon also forecast third-quarter revenue […]

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