Emirates NBD expects the buoyant local economy to keep boosting its profits and allow the bank to build up its bad loan coverage ratio without the kind of severe provisioning which stymied recent earnings, its CEO said on Thursday. Dubai’s largest lender beat analysts’ forecasts with a 25 percent jump in first-quarter net profit to 1.04 billion dirhams ($283.7 million) as higher interest and fee income outstripped […]
|By TAP Staff| Trade in petrochemicals between Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states is set for robust growth in the coming years led by the development of the region’s rail and transport network, predicts the Gulf Petrochemicals & Chemicals Association (GPCA), the region’s longest-standing trade association. “An integrated railway network is an important catalyst in driving increased economic integration between GCC countries as it fosters the region’s development […]
Emaar Properties, Dubai’s largest listed real estate developer, predicted on Wednesday that its profits would more than quadruple by 2018 as the emirate’s economy booms and the company’s overseas business expands. The company, about 29 percent owned by the Dubai government, is seen by many investors as a proxy for the emirate’s economy, which relies heavily on real estate development, tourism and the retail industry – sectors […]
Dubai tapped capital markets for the first time in more than a year with the sale of $750 million of 15-year Islamic bonds as the emirate seeks to pay debt and finance its budget amid a property-market recovery. The Dubai government’s securities will price to yield 5 percent, according to a person with knowledge of the offering, who asked not to be identified because the details are […]
Emaar Properties, Dubai’s biggest publicly traded developer, reported first-quarter profit that beat estimates after real estate sales in its home market almost doubled by value. Net income climbed 55 percent to 863 million dirhams ($235 million), the company said in a statement today. The average of four analysts was 739 million dirhams, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Emaar countered a slump in Dubai’s property market by […]
Hedge funds lowered bullish bets on gold for a fourth week, the longest streak this year. The net-long position contracted to the lowest since mid-February as speculators sold bullion on signs of accelerating U.S. economic growth. The investors more than doubled bets on lower prices in the past month while reducing wagers on a rally in six of the past seven weeks. Prices fell 7.6 percent since […]
|By TAP Staff| With mixed availability of commercial space across the Abu Dhabi market, potential occupiers remain focussed on prime Grade A stock, which is sustaining rents at the top end of the market, according to the latest research by real estate consultancy Cluttons. Cluttons Abu Dhabi Spring 2014 Commercial Market Outlook report, asserts that with flat rents persisting, occupiers remain in the driving seat and are […]
|By TAP Staff| The Dubai World Trade Centre on Saturday announced that 2.2 million trade delegates and attendees visited exhibitions centre last year – marking the first time the figure has crossed the 2 million milestone. Dubai World Trade Centre hosted 373 meetings, incentives, conferencing, and exhibitions (MICE )and business events throughout 2013, up from 302 in the previous year. Exhibitors from more than 130 nations attended. […]
Dubai needs to regulate its off plan property market and monitor the rising levels of cash transactions to ensure sustainable growth and avoid a bust, an industry expert has warned. “There is a lot of capital coming into the market specifically within the residential market,” said Mat Green, head of research and consultancy at CBRE, Middle East. “We are not yet back to 2008 prices but in […]
Office stock in Dubai continues to see significant growth with over 1.8 million square metre set to be delivered by the end of 2017 amid a sustained year-on-year rental rally of 21 per cent, according to CBRE. The average prime annual rental rate now measures dh1830 per square metre in dubai and this figure is expected to experience further upward movement. There is a large pipeline of […]
Hotels in Dubai achieved an average occupancy of more than 87 percent during March, despite supply outpacing demand for the month, according to new data released by STR Global. Its preliminary February data for Dubai showed that occupancy stood at 87.2 percent for the month, a 1.2 percent increase on the year-earlier period. Based on the new data, the emirate reported increases in supply (up 7.4 percent) […]
Amina al-Rustamani, a member of a prominent UAE family, raised eyebrows among friends and relatives when she started her career in Dubai 13 years ago as an electrical engineer, becoming one of few females in the Middle East to enter the profession. Success in a male-dominated environment helped give her the confidence to rise up the career ladder and break more barriers. She is now chief executive […]
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is gaining ground in the debt markets of Gulf Cooperation Council states after the biggest U.S. bank helped manage this month’s Islamic bond sale by Saudi Arabia’s utility. JPMorgan is the biggest bond underwriter after HSBC Holdings in the six-nation GCC in 2014, its best start to a year since 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The New York-based lender advised on […]
Zain Saudi, Saudi Arabia’s third biggest telecoms operator, will buy fixed line capacity from its competitors to expand its service offering in the kingdom and aims to break even in less than five years, it said on Wednesday. The firm, which began operations in 2008, claimed 15 percent of Saudi’s mobile subscribers at 2013-end and has struggled to break the dominance of better-resourced rivals Saudi Telecom Co […]
Last month, Dubai’s inflation rate has jumped to its highest since 2009 driven by inflated property and food prices. According to the latest data, the cost of living in March increased 3 percent on the year before. This is an official data and it is very much likely the actual numbers to be much higher. According to figures from the Dubai Statistics Center, housing and utility costs […]
Ahli United Bank (AUB), Bahrain’s largest lender, is evaluating a sale or a merger with a rival bank in a potential $5 billion deal, several bankers familiar with the situation said. A deal of this size would be the largest banking transaction in the region for the past 20 years, according to Thomson Reuters data, beating Emirates Bank’s $3.7 billion acquisition of National Bank of Dubai in […]
Real estate transactions in Dubai continued to grow apace in the first quarter of the year, according to data from the emirate’s land department. It recorded residential, commercial and land deals worth 61 billion dirhams ($16.6 billion) in the first three months of the year, 38% higher than the AED44 billion sold in the same period last year. Overall, property transactions in the emirate climbed 53% last […]
The wrenching selloff in U.S. high-growth technology and biotech shares could leave investors braced for more than a minor pullback when earnings pick up speed this week. First-quarter earnings estimates have fallen sharply as many companies have blamed the brutal winter for weak outlooks. With high-valuation stocks under pressure, earnings could be subjected to even more investor scrutiny than usual. “There’s skepticism among investors about the outlook, […]
Dubai’s benchmark stock index fell the most in a month, tracking a decline in global markets last week, on investor concern this year’s rally was overdone given prospects for earnings growth. Saudi Arabia’s gauge dropped. The DFM General Index tumbled 1.7 percent, the most since March 12, to close at 4,759.15 in the emirate. Dubai Islamic Bank , the United Arab Emirates’ biggest shariah-compliant bank, declined for […]
|By TAP Staff| FDI investment in the UAE reached US$ 12 billion in 2013 and is projected to grow 20 percent in 2014 to reach US$ 14.4 billion, according to Fortress Investments. The estimated growth rate in 2014 would represent a 260 percent increase over 2008, which not only demonstrates full recovery from the global financial crisis, but reflects huge future growth potential for UAE economy that […]
An exodus of senior executives and staff at India’s second largest IT outsourcing firm, Infosys Ltd, could hamper efforts to win lucrative contracts in the United States and Europe, and weigh on its profit growth outlook for this year. Nearly a fifth of the workforce had left the company in the quarter ended December following the return from retirement of founder N.R. Narayana Murthy in June to […]
The Nasdaq suffered its biggest drop in two-and-a-half years on Thursday after another sharp selloff in biotech and momentum names, including Gilead Sciences and TripAdvisor, increasing investor anxiety about a broader pullback. The Nasdaq biotechnology index .NBI shed 5.6 percent, its biggest one-day drop since August 2011, adding to recent losses since a large drop in Gilead more than two weeks ago triggered a wider selloff for […]
Warburg Pincus, the private-equity firm managing about $37 billion in assets, is considering investments in Africa and the Middle East as capital starts to flow back into emerging markets. “We are looking beyond the core euro-zone markets into the rapidly growing emerging markets around Europe for investment opportunities,” Joseph Schull, head of Warburg Pincus in Europe, said in an interview yesterday. “Africa is the next big frontier […]
|By TAP Staff|Last year the Pay TV market in the MENA region grew 11.2 percent in terms of market share and 14.13 percent in terms of subscriber numbers, according to the findings of the latest Middle East Media Market report released by IHS, a leading global source of business information and insight. Over the last decade (2004 – 2013) the number of primary Pay TV subscribers almost […]
