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US bill set to undermine trust with Saudis, vitiate ties
|Arabian Post Research|The Middle East geopolitics is set to enter a new flashpoint over the US legislation that will ultimately allow families of the victims of 9/11 to sue Saudi Arabian for responsibility for the terrorist attack. Both the US House of Representatives and Senate have passed a bill to this effect unopposed, but President Barack Obama is expected to veto the legislation, although Congress could override […]
Gold braces for lower prices
|By Luzi-Ann Javier| Central bankers are putting gold investors and traders on the defensive. More than 2,500 lots exchanged hands Friday for a put option giving owners the right to sell October futures at $1,300 an ounce, making it the most-traded option for the second straight day. The most active contract on the Comex slipped as much as 0.6 percent to $1,334.10. Holdings in exchange-traded funds backed by […]
An OPEC output freeze deal in Algeria means $60 oil!
/By Matein Khalid/The oil market has been a rollercoaster in 2016. A global financial panic triggered by China’s yuan depreciation caused Brent crude to fall below $30 a barrel in late January. I was amazed at the sheer scale of the speculative short positions accumulated by oil traders and hedge funds in both West Texas and Brent futures markets, the highest since the oil crash of 2008. The […]
PayPal, MasterCard reach deal for store payments
MasterCard Inc said on Tuesday it had expanded its deal with payment processor PayPal Holdings Inc, which would allow customers to use PayPal’s payment services in stores. PayPal’s partnership follows a similar deal with MasterCard’s larger rival Visa Inc in July as the company looks to expand its payments network. PayPal will allow users to select a credit or debit card as the default payment method and […]
Gawker.com to shut down as Univision buys other sites
By Jessica DiNapoli U.S. internet publisher Gawker Media Group Inc said on Thursday that it would shut down its news and gossip website Gawker.com next week after Univision Holdings Inc successfully bid for the internet publisher’s six other websites. The decision to end Gawker.com’s 14-year run comes two days after Univision (UVN.N) won a bankruptcy auction to acquire Gawker Media for $135 million, outbidding media company Ziff […]
Global wealth study shows a 6.4% billionaire population growth representing a combined wealth of US$7.7 trillion
INTERNATIONAL. Wealth-X today released key highlights from its 2015-2016 Billionaire Census revealing a record number of billionaires, globally. The third edition of this preeminent report indicates that there are 2,473 total billionaires in the world, representing a combined wealth of US$7.7 trillion. These figures illustrate a 6.4% and 5.4% increase since 2014, respectively. Driven by Wealth-X’s unparalleled collection of hand curated dossiers on the ultra high net […]
Chinese consortium agrees $4.4 billion deal for Caesars online games
Jack Ma, founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group speaks during the inaugural ”Xin” Philanthropy Conference in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, July 9, 2016. China Daily/via Reuters A Chinese consortium that includes game developer Shanghai Giant Network Technology Co Ltd and e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd founder Jack Ma has agreed to acquire Caesars Interactive Entertainment Inc’s online games unit for $4.4 billion in cash, the […]
Most commodities up but oil plays yo-yo
INTERNATIONAL. The Bloomberg Commodity Index, which tracks the performance of 20 major commodities split evenly between energy, metals and agriculture, continues to show a gain of more than 10% in the year to date. Some softness, however, has crept in during the past few weeks with some sectors, most notably energy, pausing after rallies in oil and natural gas ran out of steam. Industrial metals found support […]
U.S. tax agency probes Facebook over Ireland asset transfer
The logo of Facebook is seen at the Cannes Lions Festival in Cannes, France, June 23, 2016. Reuters/Eric Gaillard The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is examining Facebook Inc over its transfer of various rights associated with its worldwide business to a holding company in Ireland, according to court papers. The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco seeking to enforce […]
British equities and recession in the sceptered isle
|By Matein Khalid| David Cameron, Wall Street’s elite, Mutti Merkel, Obama, the Eurocrats of Brussels, the great and the good of the City and the IMF’s Lady Christine all got it so horribly wrong. I slept Thursday night with sterling at 1.50 on New York and awoke to see it trade at 1.34 on Friday, a 30 year low before the Plaza Accords. Britain has voted to […]
Insight – Landing with a bump? Germany's Rocket falls back to earth
BERLIN/LAGOS When German e-commerce investor Rocket Internet launched Jumia in 2012 as a would-be African Amazon, it was optimistic that a rapidly expanding middle class would quickly shift from street markets to shopping online. Four years on, falling sales for sites like Jumia and slower growth from Nigeria to Russia and Brazil is casting doubt on Rocket Internet’s ambition to become the world’s biggest Internet company outside […]
Saudi fund invests $3.5b in Uber
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund made its highest-profile deal, investing $3.5 billion in U.S. ride-share company Uber Technologies Inc. as the country seeks to diversify its assets with more overseas acquisitions. Yasir Alrumayyan, managing director of the Public Investment Fund, will take a board seat at the San Francisco-based company after the deal, which values Uber at $62.5 billion, the company said in a statement. It’s the biggest […]
Warren Buffett's Berkshire takes $1 billion bite of Apple
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) revealed a more than $1 billion stake in Apple Inc (AAPL.O) in a rare foray into the technology sector, which Buffett has largely shunned apart from a poorly performing investment in IBM (IBM.N). Shares of Apple rose 3.7 percent on the news, closing up $3.36 at $93.88. Berkshire made its investment in the first quarter, before the iPhone maker in April […]
Saudi holdings of US debt holdings revealed for first time
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saudi Arabia ranks among the top dozen foreign holders of U.S. debt, the Treasury Department disclosed, breaking its silence on the issue for the past four decades. “The stockpile of the world’s biggest oil exporter stood at $116.8 billion as of March, down almost 6 percent from a record in January, according to data the Treasury disclosed Monday in response to a Freedom-of-Information […]
UAE is fastest growing market for card transactions
|By Arabian Post Staff| The UAE has earned the distinction of being the fastest growing market in the world for card transactions. The UAE is a clear front runner in a rapidly expanding regional payment environment as card transactions experienced an estimated 10 percent growth in 2015 compared to the previous year, amid a total 24 per cent growth in the MEA region, making it the fastest expansion rate in card transactions in […]
Bullish case for Habib Bank
|By Matein Khalid| Habib Bank Ltd is one of the Pakistan’s oldest, biggest retail/corporate banks, privatized last year with a 51% controlling stake held by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development. Its recent price fall from 240 to 172 rupees (PKR, not INR!) is a compelling opportunity to own an undervalued, well managed proxy for consumption and credit offtake in a 190 million population country now […]
How Toshiba got paid before a sale closed in a maneuver skirting antitrust rules
A Toshiba Corp logo displayed on one of its television sets is seen through a vehicle in Tokyo, Japan, November 26, 2015. Reuters/Toru Hanai/Files TOKYO Toshiba Corp, in a hurry to raise cash before closing its books for the business year that ended at the end of last month, was able to structure the sale of its medical equipment business to Canon Inc in an unorthodox way […]
JP Morgan to advise on Aramco IPO
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Michael Klein, the former Citigroup Inc. investment banker who runs his own boutique, have been selected to advise on state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co.’s initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. Klein is providing strategic advice to the government, while JPMorgan is working on preparations for the IPO and may be among the banks that underwrite the listing, the […]
Serious London bid to retain gold hub status
|By Arabian Post Staff| The way gold is bought and sold in London, the world’s largest gold-trading hub, may finally give way to newer methods to ensure that the city retains its status as a major gold hub. Currently, more gold is sold and bought in New York and Shanghai than London. Reports suggest that the London Bullion Market Association and the World Gold Council are pursuing […]
RAK Offshore in Mossack Fonseca’s network
|ARABIAN POST SPECIAL| The Ras Al Khaimah Offshore Centre was among the centres, along with London, Miami and Zurich, used by Mossack Fonseca, the little-known but powerful law firm based in Panama, that constitutes the core of the Panama Papers, which has rocked the world by revealing the offshore links some of the planet’s most prominent people used to hide wealth. Mossack Fonseca has branches in London, Beijing, Miami, […]
Barclays says it still has Gulf critical mass
Barclays Plc still has “critical mass” to compete in the Middle East and will aim to help local companies raise capital even as it scales back lending, Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley said. The U.K. lender has more than 200 employees in the United Arab Emirates after job cuts in the country this year and will continue to operate its corporate, investment banking and wealth management businesses […]
Alabbar gets funding pledge for Americana bid
|By Arabian Post Staff| Emaar Chairman and leading Dubai businessman Mohammed Alabbar’s investment consortium Adeptio is learnt to have secured commitments worth $1.5 billion to fund its pursuit of regional KFC operator Americana. The banks lending money for the acquisition reportedly include Citigroup, Standard Chartered , Credit Suisse Group AG, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Emirates NBD, First Gulf Bank and Bahrain-based Ahli United Bank. Earlier this year, Adeptio had […]
Remittances by Indians drop to 5-year low
India’s most reliable source of foreign funding is under threat. Remittances fell to $15.8 billion last quarter, the lowest since April-June 2011 and a 9.4 percent drop from a year earlier, as the global slowdown and slumping oil prices reduce demand for foreign workers. Indians working abroad — from construction laborers in Dubai to Silicon Valley engineers — send home the most money in the world, helping to pay for […]
