Phoenix Power $146m IPO heavily oversubscribed MUSCAT, 10 hours, 58 minutes ago The flotation of Phoenix Power Co, owner of Oman’s largest power plant, has been heavily oversubscribed, attracting over RO1 billion ($2.6 billion) of bids from investors, the state-run Oman News Agency (ONA) reported on Sunday. The company sought to raise RO56.3 million ($146.3 million) by offering a 35 per cent stake in an offer open […]
BAHRAIN. On June 12, 2015, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed its long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the Kingdom of Bahrain at ‘BBB-/A-3’. We also affirmed our long- and short-term foreign and local currency credit ratings on the Central Bank of Bahrain at ‘BBB-/A-3’. The outlooks on both Bahrain and its central bank remain negative. RATIONALE We expect that Bahrain’s fiscal […]
Video | Orange’s Boss Meets With Netanyahu Stéphane Richard, the chief executive of Orange, the French telecom giant, tells Israel’s prime minister that he regrets the furor caused by his statements about doing business in the country. By JODI RUDOREN June 12, 2015 JERUSALEM — The chief executive of a French telecommunications company made an extraordinary personal pilgrimage on Friday to apologize to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, […]
UAE. The European football market grew to total $28.9 billion in 2013/14. Revenue growth across all of the ‘big five’ European leagues (Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, Premier League and Serie A), saw the combined revenues of the ‘big five’ leagues pass the $15 billion mark ($15.3bn), according to the 24th Annual Review of Football Finance from the Sports Business Group at Deloitte. Dan Jones, Partner in […]
By ADAM LIPTAK June 8, 2015 WASHINGTON — Against the backdrop of generations of conflict in the Middle East and the longstanding tensions between Congress and presidents on the conduct of foreign policy there, the Supreme Court on Monday struck down a law that allowed American parents of children born in Jerusalem to obtain passports saying the children were born in Israel. The vote was 6 to 3, with […]
|TAP Special| Sections of public opinion in the Arab Gulf see anti-Arab bias and the grudge in losing the bid for hosting World Cup as the main motivation for the campaign against Qatar in the award of 2022 tournament. As it becomes increasingly clear that the corruption scandal can have very negative implications for the hosting of the tournament, the Arab public opinion is also becoming more […]
Adams … master-planning is important for sustainable developments. Master-planning key to sustainable mixed-use projects DUBAI, 3 days ago The Middle East has a unique set of challenges and opportunities with regard to creating large, mixed-use developments, says Louise Adams, former country manager UAE at Aurecon, an engineering, planning, project management and consulting company. Adams describes the importance of investing in master-planning, some of the current opportunities and […]
By DIAA HADID June 5, 2015 RAMALLAH, West Bank — France is “firmly opposed” to a boycott of Israel, the French foreign minister said Friday, after the partly state-owned French telecommunications company Orange said it would seek to withdraw its brand from the Israeli market. The company’s decision was seen in Israel as the latest in a rapid succession of blows meant to isolate and punish the country over […]
UAE. Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity and stakebuilding is gaining momentum in the Middle East as financially strong and profitable insurers seek to deploy surplus capital to broaden their profiles and satisfy shareholders’ expectations. The market is ripe for consolidation as medium-size players seek to maintain their market positions, while many smaller insurers in particular struggle with profitability, owing to their high expense bases. In a new […]
By ISABEL KERSHNER June 4, 2015 JERUSALEM — A growing global pro-Palestinian movement to boycott Israel instantly created a national furor on Thursday after the top executive of Orange, a leading French telecommunications company, said he would withdraw from the Israeli market if he could. The Facebook page of an Israeli company, Partner Communications, which has a license to use the Orange brand, was filled with customer complaints demanding […]
The logo of Alibaba Group is seen inside the company’s headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province early November 11, 2014. Reuters/Aly Song/Files BEIJING/SHANGHAI Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will invest in financial media outlet China Business Network in a deal set to be announced on Thursday, Chinese media reported on Wednesday. The investment in China Business Network, part of Shanghai Media Group (SMG), will be worth […]
|By TAP Staff| Etihad has formally submitted a document to the United States government rebutting allegations by U.S. carriers that it receives unfair subsidies. The airline announced the filing Tuesday. It is the airline’s most comprehensive response yet to American carriers’ effort to pressure Washington to renegotiate agreements that allow airlines from Qatar and the UAE to fly to the U.S. U.S. airlines have criticized Etihad and […]
UAE. Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, achieved its strongest financial results to date in 2014, posting a net profit of US$ 73 million on total revenues of US$ 7.6 billion, up 52.1 per cent and 26.7 per cent respectively over the previous year. 2014 PEFORMANCE SUMMARY OF ETIHAD AIRWAYS *The above results represent the standalone airline business within the newly formed Etihad […]
Op-Ed Contributor By NICHOLAS MCGEEHAN May 28, 2015 LONDON — On May 11, the Lebanese artist Walid Raad was turned away at the airport when he tried to enter the United Arab Emirates, where the government is making a big investment in art with the Saadiyat Island project. The project, in the capital, Abu Dhabi, will include branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim as well as a campus […]
|By K Raveendran| Samena Capital, which recently completed the purchase of UAE’s global ceramics leader RAK Ceramics, has acquired a significant stake in London-based private banking and corporate advisory Kleinwort Benson Bank. (KBBL) The transaction opens up the possibility of the bank establishing a new global merchant banking operation in Dubai to offer advisory services for corporate in the region. The transaction is expected to close by […]
JORDAN. Technology will be a “game changer” in tackling youth unemployment in the Middle East and North Africa’s emerging Digital Economy, but only if the government, private, and people sectors collaborate effectively, according to a new report released on the eve of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) 2015. The report “Re-Dynamizing the Job Machine: Technology-Driven Transformation of Labor Markets in […]
By TAP Staff|Arcapita, the global investment management firm, announcedthe completion of the sale of J.Jill Group Inc., a leading US-based multi-channel retailer of women’s apparel, accessories and footwear, to TowerBrook Capital Partners L.P., a New York and London-based investment management firm. The parties did not disclose the transaction value. Originally founded in 1959 and headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts, J.Jill provides inspired styles to its loyal customer through […]
|By TAP Staff| Network International, the credit card processing company owned by Emirates NBD and Abraaj Group is set to launch an IPO. According to sources, the offering would happen in the fourth quarter or in early 2016. The business is expected to be valued at more than $1 billion. Abraaj bought 49 percent of Network International from Emirates NBD for about 2 billion dirhams ($545 million) in late 2010. The […]
NEW YORK Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn said Thursday that mutual funds will increasingly realise that being underweight shares of Apple (AAPL.O) will hurt their performance as the technology giant continues to innovate. “They are underweight Apple in relation to the index funds, and I think more and more of these funds will realise that’s going to hurt their performance in the future as Apple continues to […]
By PETER BAKER May 21, 2015 WASHINGTON — President Obama denied that the United States and its allies were losing the fight against Islamic State forces in the Middle East, but he acknowledged in an interview posted online on Thursday that more should be done to help Iraqis recapture lost territory. While repeating his refusal to commit large-scale American forces to the region, the president said Sunni fighters in […]
CRM behemoth Salesforce is rolling out the next iteration of Community Cloud, technology that lets companies combine business data and processes with its customer relationship management (CRM) platform to create personalized, mobile destinations. Specifically, Salesforce is adding Targeted Recommendations, Lightning Community Builder and Templates and Salesforce Files Connect for Google Drive. The goal is to help companies connect with stakeholders in new ways. Community Cloud was already […]
TOKYO—Japan’s Inpex Corp. has secured a 5% stake in Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, or ADCO, one of the Gulf nation’s biggest oil concessions, becoming the second foreign stakeholder after France’s Total SA . The move suggests that as part of Tokyo’s efforts to shore up its energy supplies, the partly state-owned Japanese energy company was prepared to pay a hefty signing-on fee that other […]
|By TAP Staff| Emaar Malls , the shopping malls and retail business majority-owned by global property developer Emaar Properties, records net profit of AED 433 million (US$ 118 million) during the first quarter (January to March) of 2015. This is 32 per cent higher than Q1 2014 net profit of AED 329 million (US$ 90 million). The revenue during Q1 2015 across all its mall and retail […]
Dubai Investments said on Wednesday it plans to enter new markets in Africa and the Gulf region, as it reported a 6.5 per cent rise in first-quarter net profit. “Several new investment proposals are currently under evaluation, with some of them in advanced stages of negotiations,” Khalid bin Kalban, the firm’s chief executive, said in a statement. Kalban said the firm was targeting diversified sectors such as […]
