A well-timed launch saw Dubai Investments Park achieve favourable terms on its debut $300 million, 4.296 percent five-year Reg S sukuk issue, a deal that may serve to accelerate the plans of other regional potential issuers. The real estate firm, rated BB by Standard & Poor’s, kicked off the deal in a strong week for emerging markets and to a market starved of Middle East paper: it […]
Indian mobile phone market leaders Bharti Airtel and Vodafone bought airwaves worth about $3 billion each in a hotly contested auction that raised nearly $10 billion, far exceeding the government’s target. No.1 Bharti and second-ranked Vodafone said they had won airwaves in the premium 900 megahertz band that was available in three key cities — Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Conglomerate Reliance Industries, a new entrant in telecoms that is seen […]
U.K. billionaire Richard Branson said his Virgin Galactic venture is on track to carry its first fare-paying passenger to the edge of space this year, and that he plans to take his family on a flight some time in 2014. Virgin Galactic, which completed the third rocket-powered supersonic flight of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle from Mojave Air and Space Port in California last month, is on course to […]
Research from PwC predicts that global assets under management (AuM) will rise to around $101.7 trillion by 2020, from a 2012 total of $63.9 trillion. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 6%. The report, Asset Management 2020: A brave new world, also finds that assets under management in the SAAAME (South America, Asia, Africa, Middle East) economies are set to grow faster than […]
The U.N. nuclear agency said on Sunday that Iran had agreed to start addressing suspicions that it may have worked on designing an atomic weapon, a potential breakthrough in a long-stalled investigation into Tehran’s atomic activities. The development – although limited for now – marked a step forward in an international push to settle a decade-old dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran says this is peaceful, while […]
Final approval for .abudhabi and .dubai web addresses may be only months away, with experts predicting widespread uptake. The global authority that controls the launch of new domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), is in the final stages of approval for the two. It is hoped that by linking the web addresses to the geographical location of a website, it will boost […]
Internet search company Google Inc will own a 5.94 percent stake in China’s Lenovo Group Ltd worth $750 million once Lenovo’s deal to buy Google’s Motorola handset division closes, according to a disclosure on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Google would take 618.3 million Lenovo shares at $1.213 per share, the stock exchange said late on Thursday. Lenovo agreed to buy Google’s Motorola handset division last week […]
European stocks rose for a second day as investors awaited the European Central Bank’s rate decision and weighed company earnings. Asian shares and U.S. stock-index futures also advanced. Daimler AG gained 3.4 percent after posting a 45 percent surge in quarterly profit. Volvo (VOLVB)AB climbed 4.8 percent after reporting operating profit that beat projections and saying it will cut 4,400 jobs. Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) fell 1.1 percent after posting […]
Dubai-based construction firm Arabtec said it would build 37 major buildings worth 22.44 billion dirhams ($6.1 billion) for Abu Dhabi state fund Aabar in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, in a fresh sign of the dramatic recovery of local estate markets. Confirming a Reuters story on Saturday, Arabtec said the deal was one of the largest ever in the region’s real estate sector and Arabtec’s biggest by value. […]
Gulf Finance House EC (GFH) climbed to the highest in more than 22 months after the investment company said it signed an agreement with a group of British investors to sell 75 percent of its stake in Leeds United Plc. The shares gained 9.6 percent to 0.86 dirhams in Dubai, the highest close since March 2012. GFH will retain a 10 percent holding in the club after […]
Saudi Arabia helped lift the market to a new five-year high on Wednesday, while other regional shares also gained. Saudi Arabia’s Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) rose 2.9 percent to 88.5 riyals and trading volumes jumped to their highest in three years after the firm beat analysts’ forecasts with an 8.6 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit. The stock jumped to a seven-year intraday high of 90 riyals but […]
Bahrain-based investment firm Gulf Finance House (GFH) has agreed a partial sale of its stake in English soccer club Leeds United, the firm said in a statement on Wednesday. GFH said the sale was agreed with British investors, whose details the firm did not specify in a bourse statement. The investment firm did not provide details on the stake value or the size of the stake sold. […]
Volkswagen AG outsold General Motors Co. in China for the first time in nine years to recapture the lead among foreign automakers in the world’s largest car market. VW’s 2013 deliveries in the country climbed to at least 3.27 million vehicles, according to figures released this week by the German automaker’s VW, Porsche, Audi and Skoda brands. Detroit-based GM also said this week that the U.S. automaker […]
The long-term future of fields that produce about half Abu Dhabi’s oil remains unclear with only one day of a 75-year partnership with western oil companies left to run. Some of the world’s largest energy companies – ExxonMobil , Royal Dutch Shell, Total and BP – have been pumping crude from the Abu Dhabi desert for decades, taking payment in oil. From midnight on Friday, the 9.5 […]
Abu Dhabi will take full control of the UAE’ biggest oilfields when its decades-old venture with four western oil giants ends this weekend, while it weighs new partnerships that could include its long-term collaborators or Asian newcomers. The OPEC member country has held a 60-percent stake in Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO) since acquiring an interest in fields that produce over half the United […]
Negotiations between Iran and six world powers on implementing a landmark November deal to freeze parts of Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing some sanctions have run into problems over advanced centrifuge research, diplomats said. The dispute over centrifuges highlighted the huge challenges facing Iran and the six powers in negotiating the precise terms of the November 24 interim agreement. If they succeed, they plan to […]
Indian budget airline SpiceJet has agreed to buy about 40 Boeing 737 jets worth over $4 billion at list prices, industry sources said, a move that could help the loss-making carrier as it seeks new investors. The deal includes a firm order for as many as 42 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft that offer fuel savings compared to SpiceJet’s existing fleet of current-generation Boeing 737s, the sources said. […]
Al Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB), a federal government company specialised in providing UAE-based credit reports and other financial information, has announced that it will be operational within the next three months. AECB, which is supported by the UAE federal government, has approached all UAE-based banks to sign agreements and provide credit information via a process which will be completed by the end of January 2014. Additionally, AECB […]
Dubai Group LLC, the investment company that has been seeking payment relief on loans for the past three years, repaid a $300 million syndicated facility led by Citigroup Inc., two people with knowledge of the matter said. Some of the lenders will exit talks on Dubai Group’s $6 billion debt pile, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The Islamic […]
Dubai investments expects to make a profit of around 800 million dirhams ($217.8 million) in 2013, a company statement said on Thursday, confirming local media reports. Khalid bin Kalban, the company’s chief executive, had told Al Khaleej newspaper that the net profit would be over 800 million dirhams at the end of 2013, a 149.5 percent increase over the 320.6 million dirhams of profit posted in 2012. […]
Italian carmaker Fiat SpA struck a $4.35 billion deal to gain full control of Chrysler Group LLC, ending more than a year of tense talks that have obstructed Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne’s efforts to combine the two automakers’ resources. The agreement, announced on Wednesday, cements Marchionne’s reputation as the industry’s consummate dealmaker about a decade after he took the helm of Fiat as a car business newcomer, […]
The Bombay Bullion Association, a traders’ group, plans to buy a stake in the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. after the regulator declared its founder unfit to run the nation’s biggest commodity bourse. The association plans to buy 5 percent of MCX via a consortium led by the Universal Commodity Exchange Ltd., another Mumbai-based bourse, from Financial Technologies (India) Ltd., Mohit Kamboj, president of the group […]
Hedge funds got less bullish on gold for the seventh time in eight weeks as signs of accelerating U.S. economic and tame inflation growth drive prices to the worst annual drop in more than three decades. The net-long position in gold fell 12 percent to 28,702 futures and options in the week ended Dec. 24, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Short holdings gained 1.1 percent […]
The decision by India’s top investigating agency to probe a third billionaire-led mining deal in six months puts at risk government efforts to revive $160 billion of stalled projects. The Central Bureau of Investigation said on Dec. 23 it started probing Anil Agarwal, who runs the country’s biggest aluminum and copper producer. It alleged irregularities in his 2002 purchase of the state’s 26 percent stake in Hindustan […]
